Ramapo Fencers Foil Indian Hills

Ramapo fencers defeated Indian Hills on Thursday 15-12 (14-5).

Ramapo starters continued to use their sharp fencing skills, but a scrappy Indian Hills team fought back and made a number of unexpected victories. Ramapo sabreists lost one of their first round bouts, foilists dropped two of their bouts and all of a sudden the match was tied at 3-3, the first time this has happened all season. Ramapo epeeists came to the rescue by sweeping all three of their first round bouts to put the score at 6-3 at the end of the first round. In the second round the sabreists again went 2-1, as did the foilists, while the epeeists again had a clean sweep, bringing the overall score to 13-5. After Alex Gorloff won the first bout of the third round, clinching the meet at 14-5, Ramapo replaced all their starters with subs who fought hard but were unable to make much headway since Indian Hills left all their starters in the match.

Ramapo epeeists were the top performers of the meet with the three starters, Sam Judd, Scott Zellers, and Matt Martone each going 2-0. When the starters were subbed out, instead of replacing them with fencers who are 4th through 7th in the lineup, which we normally do, we decided to give some varsity experience to fencers who are at the bottom of the lineup and rarely, if ever, get to fence in Varsity meets. So in went epeeists who are 9th through 12th in the lineup. They were unable to win any bouts against the Indian Hills starters but they made good touches and got a taste of Varsity fencing. The epee squad finished with a 6-3 record.

Ramapo sabreists were stumped by Indian Hills’ senior, Alec Roman, who fought his way to a 3-0 record. In close 4-4 and 4-3 bouts Roman managed to land the winning 5th touch against  previously undefeated Alex Gorloff and Adam Carcione, who previously had only one loss. While there were questionable calls in each bout most of Roman’s touches were clear. Roman easily defeated our third round substitute who is a freshman with two months of experience. Chris Muller went 2-0 and it would have been interesting to see his match up against Roman but he was subbed out in the third round to give some experience to our younger sabreists. The sabre squad finished with a 5-4 record.

The Ramapo foil squad went 4-5 against a reasonably strong Indian Hills contingent. Starters went 3-3 as Tanner Frank led the squad with a 2-0 record, with decisive 5-1 and 5-2 scores, and Daniel Kim added a third victory. Substitute Nick Carpino, who was the only substitute on the team to win his bout, added a 4th victory with a decisive 5-1 score.

Ramapo’s next meet is against Bergen Tech on Friday, Jan. 25. Fencers must arrive at Ramapo, fully dressed in warm-ups at 3 p.m. Parents can arrive at Bergen Tech, 275 Pascack Rd., Paramus at 4:30 p.m.

Please come and support the team. It makes a difference!

Ramapo’s prior meets: Nyack 28-1 (14-1), Fair Lawn 23-4 (14-2), Passaic Valley 16-11 (14-7), Bernards 15-12 (14-12), Columbia 11-16 (8-14), Don Bosco 13-14 (12-14), Pompton Lakes 17-10 (14-5), Indian Hills 15-12 (14-5).

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