The Livingston High School girls ’ varsity fencing team was namedNJSIAA State Champions on Thursday, F ebruary 27. They clinchedthe championship after defeating Columbia at Morris Hills High School.
“This historic first fencing girls’ team state title wasn’t just handed to them, they earned it through countless late nights, sweat, and determination!” said head coach Jeanette Ng in a post-match email to fencers and their parents. “After years of coming close but falling short, they’ve finally brought home the championship our program has dreamed about for so long! This victory belongs to each of you, and it will forever be remembered as the moment that changed Livingston’s girls’ fencing history forever!”
Understanding Fencing
In high school team fencing, there are three rounds in a match, with each round having nine games, or “bouts.”
There are 27 bouts in each match. Every round starts with three saber bouts, followed by three foil bouts, and ending with three épée bouts. The first fencer to get five points wins the bout; the first team to top 14 bouts wins the match. The three types of modern fencing – saber, foil, and épée – have different equipment, rules, and techniques.
NJSIAA Championship
In the championship match against Columbia High School, LHS took a 6-3 lead after the first round, with saber and épée sweeping their bouts.
Columbia rebounded in the second round as they evened the score to 9-all, winning one saber, three foil, and two épée bouts. Despite the round ending with LHS épée captain Kayla Fang’s 5-0 victory, the third round began with two saber losses for Livingston, the score widening to a 13-10 lead for Columbia before the final foil bout.
This season’s LHS team has strong saber and épée squads, with 69 percent and 83 percent win rates in the regular season, respectively; the foil squad’s win rate was just over 50 percent.
Valentina Zheng is a senior captain who has been on the team throughout her four years in LHS. With a 34-5 season record, she had the highest record in the team. In the final sabre match, she hit the final touch at 4-4.
The next two games extended the LHS foil squad’s losing streak against Columbia. LHS had to win all of the final four bouts in order to not go home empty-handed.
LHS’last foil bout fell on Charlotte Yang, another senior and the captain of the foil squad. She started as an épée fencer and did quite well in the last three seasons (62-24), but switched to foil this season to help the team. As the only foil fencer in the team with a winning record (299), she was the team’s last hope at staying competitive in the match.
While Yang’s opponent got the first touch for an early lead, Yang was able to punch ahead to a 5-2 win.
“Going into the third foil bout with the score 13-10, I knew we were down a substantial amount but I also had a lot of faith in my team and myself to make a comeback,” Yang said. “The second I started fencing, I had the sense that we were going to make that huge comeback – and we did.
“When we won, I was incredibly emotional because I was so happy to see us accomplish something we had fought so hard for so long, and I cried out of the pride I felt for our team. I also felt proud of myself – even though I had lost the previous two, I was able to fight for our team and win foil’s most important one, and as a long-time épée fencer who switched to foil this year, I couldn’t believe that we had made it this far. I’m so happy to end off my last season at LHS like this and I’m endlessly proud of our team and our coaches for fighting so hard throughout the season to be able to get us the title of state champions.”
Caroline Li, a freshman épée fencer who injured her ankle at the North American Junior Olympics tournament last month, pulled LHS to one game from even with a 5-2 win. Next, sophomore Kailin Kang’s 5-3 win tied LHS with Columbia.
In her third and final match of the championship, Fang won with 45 seconds left on the clock. For this, she was awarded the Player of the Game award.
“The state title has been within our reach for the past three years, so I’m overjoyed that we finally made it,” said Zheng.
