Women's Fencing: Saturday's Duals

While many other teams at the NU Duals seemed sluggish early on, Northwestern did not seem phased by the 8 am start time Saturday. To kick off the NU Duals, the Wildcats defeated Johns Hopkins 25-2, with foil and sabre dropping one bout each.

NU followed up its impressive performance against JHU with a defeat of Duke. The epée squad remained undefeated after competing against the Blue Devils.

The Cats then squared off with No. 9 Temple. Despite the sabre squad losing 5-4 early on, the epée and foil squads rallied, winning 7-2 and 6-3 respectively. NU defeated the Owls 17-10.

Just a week after losing to Ohio State 18-9, NU dueled with the Buckeyes. The sabre squad was swept within 15 minutes, losing 9-0. Foil (4-5) and epée (5-4) competed well against the second-ranked squad in the country. The loss matched the same score from the Cats loss last weekend, 19-8. 

The Cats fifth and final match of the day featured No. 4 Penn State. Each of NU's squads squeaked out a close victory: Epée, 6-3, Foil, 6-3, and sabre, 5-4. The Cats knocked off the Nittany Lions 17-10.

On the day, Northwestern finished 4-1, an impressive performance.

On Sunday the Cats have six matches, and coach Laurie Schiller expects to win most, if not all of the duals. Schiller might rotate some of the top fencers out to help younger fencers gain valuable experience.