MADISON, N.J. – This past Sunday, March 3, the Haverford College men's fencing team competed in the Middle Atlantic Collegiate Fencing Association (MACFA) Conference Championship, held at Drew University in Madison, N.J. The Fords placed sixth overall out of 15 teams. 

The Championship was won by perennial stalwarts Johns Hopkins, with the New Jersey Institute of Technology a close second. The Fords' overall placement was buoyed by the foil squad, who placed second behind JHU, just barely; a mere two bouts total difference in the team event allowed Hopkins to squeak ahead. 

The format was a round-robin of 15 schools in IFA format (one bout per player, per school, for a total of nine bouts per match.) Based on those team results, 16 fencers in each weapon were chosen to compete in the Individual portion of the day.

All three of the Haverford starting foilists – Michael Pyo, Andrew Strayer, and Henry Fedonchik – won 10 bouts during team competition and qualified for the individual tournament. Pyo was the only one to win his first Direct Elimination bout to make it to the final of eight, where he placed fifth after a hard-fought loss to NJIT's Kevin Katayama; Strayer was 10th, and Fedonchik 14th; the foil individual title was won by JHU's Spencer Grossman-Smisek.

The sabre squad placed eighth overall, with A strip Lucas Winkler pulling in seven wins out of 13 bouts, enough to qualify him for the Individual tournament, where he placed 12th. Starting teammates Deep Patel and Jack Greff each had five wins on the day, solid results for their levels of experience, if not enough to get them to the Individuals, which was won by JHU's Will Hu.

The épée squad of Eric Chen, Daniel Carvalho, and Kenji Gullo placed sixth overall, with help from alternate athlete Vivek Veluvali towards the end of the tournament. Of those athletes, only Chen in the A slot won enough (10 wins out of 14 bouts) to get to the individual round, where he placed ninth; Jorge Gana from Hopkins won that. In fact, JHU swept all seven gold medals available in the tournament- three individual, three squad, and the overall title, an expected domination as JHU was very strong this year, beating teams such as Duke and North Carolina during the regular season.

While this tournament completed the regular fencing season, several members of the team have qualified for the NCAA Regional Championships and will compete this coming Saturday, March 9, again at Drew University. 

Haverford's 2024 Regional participants include foilists Pyo, Strayer, and Fedonchik; epeeists Chen, Carvalho, and Gullo; and sabrists Patel and Prem Bhatt, all in the hope of moving on to the NCAA National Championships, held this year at Ohio State from March 21 to March 24  in Columbus, Ohio.