This past weekend, the Brandeis University men's fencing team competed at the New England Intercollegiate Fencing Championships at Vassar College and the U.S. Collegiate Squad Championships at Drew University.
The Judges' top performers were the men's sabre squad of seniors Adam Mandel (White Plains, N.Y./Masters School) and Jess Ochs-Willard (Montclair, N.J./Montclair), junior Eric Shen (Mountainside, N.J. / Governor Livingston) and rookie Kyle Berney (Shreveport, La. / Caddo Magnet).
Ochs-Willard, Berney and Shen helped the Judges take gold at the New England Championships, while Mandel was added to the mix to help the team take bronze at the Squad Championships.
At New Englands, the Judges won 26 of 30 matches to edge rival MIT by one point. Ochs-Willard and Berney each placed second in their pools based on indicators. Ochs-Willard went 8-2 but was two touches behind Eli Polston of Vassar, while Berney went 9-1, as did MIT's Benji Lin, though the touch differential was 38-25. Shen, however, won his pool, also going 9-1, edging Sacred Heart's Schuyler Milone, 31-27, on differential. Ochs-Willard finished fourth in the individual competition.
At the Squad Championships, competing in Olympic-style relay matches to 45 points, the Judges were seeded second into a six-team draw, earning a bye. Though they lost to eighth-ranked Princeton in the semfinals, 45-33, Mandel was outstanding, outpointing the Tiger opponents 27-14.
In the bronze medal match, the Judges were much more balanced in defeating UAA rivals NYU, 45-41. Brandeis won five head-to-head showdowns and tied one other. They jumped out 15-7 lead after the first round of matchups, but the Violets rallied in matchups 4 and 5, outscoring the Judges, 18-8, to take a 25-23 lead. Mandel returned the lead to Brandeis with a 7-1 decision against NYU's Jerry Xu, putting Brandeis ahead 30-26, and the Judges hung on the rest of the way.
The men's foil squad also produced a medal performance on the weekend, finishing second at New Englands behind Sacred Heart, 31-26. The Pioneers were undefeated in the team competition, but senior Noah Berman (Palo Alto, Calif./Palo Alto) finished second in his pool at 10-1, while classmate Ethan Levy (Great Neck, N.Y. / Great Neck South) and junior Toby Gray (Keene, N.H./Keene) were each 8-2 to finish in third place. Berman took third in the individual competition and Levy was fifth. The foil squad was unable to duplicate their bronze medal at the Squad Championships, falling in the semifinals to NYU by a 45-44 score and to Princeton, 45-32, in the third-place match.
Finally, the epee squad took fourth at New England and fifth at the Squads. They had 21 points in the team competition at Vassar, with rookie Max Gould (Maplewood, N.J. / Columbia) finishing fourth in his pool at 8-3, junior Gino Barillas (Monroe, N.J. / Christian Brothers Acad.) going 7-4 to place fifth and junior Justin Kwon (Seoul, Korea / Wasatch Acad,) taking seventh at 6-5. Gould was ninth in the individual competition. The Judges lost to Sacred Heart in the first round at Drew, 45-31, but defeated the hosts, 45-23, in the fifth-place match.
In the three-weapon standings at New Englands, the Judges finished third overall, their same finish in the six-weapon standings, ending their two-year run as New England champions.
