On the Saturday of the tournament weekend, I was entered impromptu into the Open Epee tournament. Although I was not physically or mentally prepared for the event, I felt a lot better in epee than I was a year ago, thanks to the couple of months fencing foil. Anthony Betts and Cory Walker were also fencing in the Open, as well as the C&Under. And for some reason, the YJFC just ended up running half the tournament...
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| Anthony Betts awaiting to fence. Alex O'Connor and Parth Deshmukh at one side of the strip. Matt Bernstein testing weapons, and me timing/scorekeeping for Matt. |
The Sunday tournaments were also fun but a whole lot more challenging. As a first-year foilist, needless to say, I didn't do so well. In the Open Foil, Matt Bernstein, Alex O'Connor, and I seeded such that we had to fence each other for a spot in the finals. Matt got 2nd Place in Open Foil, and Alex got 3rd Place. In the C&Under, I guess I had neither the strength or will to fence much longer, and I came out short. However, Alex pulled through to earn 3rd place for a second time.
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| Congratulations to the Top 4 in Open Foil! |
Once we were done, we drove back to Atlanta and got some burgers at the Vortex. Yum.
So in short, I really enjoyed going to Geoff Elder. It's cool to find me and my teammates supporting for each other while we continually improve ourselves. I feel like I say this all the time, but the club has really grown to become a family to me, putting up with my friends' antics and simultaneously enjoying their company.
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| Parth, Matt, Cory, Anthony, Susanna (me), and Alex. The glow makes it look like we're dead... |
Well, that's another tournament down. This Sunday, I will be joining more foilists to the UGA Open, where over 50 foilists have signed up in both of the foil events. I am as excited as I am scared.
