SWARTHMORE, Pa. - The Haveford College women's fencing team placed third out of 17 teams competing at the 85th Annual National Intercollegiate Women's Fencing Association (NIWFA) championships hosted by Swarthmore College on Saturday.
The Fords held off a resurgent Farleigh Dickinson University (FDU), but were not able to overtake Stevens Institute of Technology or perennial champion, sixth-ranked Temple University.
After a hard-fought 16 rounds of team competition, selections were made from the results in order to seed the individual rounds. Katie Elbert was the top seed in the foil group, and won a great match with City College of New York's Wynne Van der Ween, but fell in the round of four to Temple's Epiphany Georges, the eventual gold medalist. Elbert lost the bronze to Stevens' Caroleen Chen. Haverford's B strip, Leila Braun, also qualified from fourth position to the individual round, placing 14th.
In the sabre individuals, second-seeded Shannon Horn also placed fourth, dropping the bronze medal to FDU's Hannah Heldenmuth, while 10th-seeded Francesca Behling improved on her ranking to an eighth-place finish, gaining a spot among the all-conference honorees.
Juliana Petersen led the epeeists with a sixth-place finish, while squadmate Sarah Sofia dropped to 10th.
Petersen, Elbert, and Horn each earned first team all-conference recognition, while Behling and Sofia garnered second team all-conference accolades.
The Fords will next compete on Saturday, March 9, in the NCAA all-divisions Mid-Atlantic Regional Championships, hosted by Lafayette College.