PHILADELPHIA – The Haverford College women's fencing team competed in the 35th Annual Temple Open tournament this past weekend, the largest collegiate individual tournament in the country. Highlighting the opening weekend of competition for the Fords was epeeist Juliana Petersen. Petersen reached the round of 16 as she placed 10th of 102 fencers.

Petersen recorded the highest finish of any division III individual as the final round of eight was dominated by fencers from Temple, Cornell, and NJIT. Petersen just edged out her EWFC rival from Johns Hopkins, Katherine Couch. In her opening seeding rounds, Petersen accumulated a strong 7-1 record and a high seed into the direct elimination rounds, unfortunately drawing (and then eliminating) her teammate, Alexis Auer. Petersen then dropped a tough match to NJIT's Julia Aronov. Auer placed 24th for the Fords, while freshman Jane Goodwin was 37th to round out the epee squad.

In the foil, junior Leila Braun impressed with an 18th place finish. That performance made her the second highest division III fencer in the 103 entrant competition, right behind her EWFC rival from Hunter College, Allison Berdichevsky. Braun had grabbed a high seed in the direct elimination table by recording an impressive 8-1 record in the pools, but fell to eventual silver medalist Jue Shigihara of NJIT. Senior co-captain Jessica Poling and freshman phenom Alexandra Morrison both fenced well in the seeding rounds but both dropped their round of 64 bouts to place 43rd and 44th in the foil, respectively. Sabristes Diana Schoder and Leslie Tjing also were back-to-back at 39th and 40th, followed by squad mates Sofia Tieze and Amanda Soled at 52nd and 56th, respectively.

The Fords next competition will be this Sunday, November 9 at the Vassar Invitational in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.