In their only home meet of the season, the men's and women's fencing teams enjoyed an extremely successful weekend. The Blue Devils defeated three of their five opponents, including a show-stopping victory over Brandeis and a triumph over arch-rival North Carolina.
The meet, held at Card Gymnasium, offered Duke its last competition of the regular season. In addition to facing Brandeis and UNC, the Blue Devils hosted Air Force, MIT and highly-rated Notre Dame. While the Carolina rivalry and the bouts against Notre Dame presented interesting matchups, Duke's battle with Brandeis proved the most exciting.
Duke and Brandeis fought evenly throughout much of the day, but going into the final two bouts, the Blue Devils trailed 13-12. Brandeis needed only to take one of the last bouts to win the overall team match, but freshman Bob Manchen kept Duke alive by winning his foil bout. Manchen's victory put the entire match on the shoulders of the Blue Devils' best epee fencer, junior captain Jeremy Kahn.
"When I started my bout, the score was still 13-12," Kahn said. "I scored a touch and won my bout, and when I turned around to look at the scoreboard, I saw that we had won."
Duke's fencers gained considerable momentum from the crowd, which, while small compared to other sports' crowds, consisted of staunch Blue Devil supporters. The fans backed Duke throughout Friday's and Saturday's bouts, but especially during Kahn's bout against Brandeis, they made their presence known.
"It was the only bout still going in the gym," assistant coach Ned Light said. "Everything else had finished, and everyone gathered around to cheer on Jeremy."
The saber fencers, despite finishing 2-3 over the weekend, recorded one of their best showings of the season. Most of the Blue Devils who fence saber are freshmen or have recently returned from travelling abroad, and, as a result, they have struggled at times. This weekend, however, they came through, challenging some of the nation's top saber teams.
"Our saber was strong," Light said. "The team is very young and we haven't always been as consistent as we'd like to be, but they performed well."
Junior Tom Halleran led the Blue Devil saber fencers with one of his best outings ever. Halleran went 12-3, including two out of three victories over UNC, and readied himself for the postseason.
"I haven't fenced that well in years," Halleran said. "This was my best performance of the season. I'm definitely ready for regionals after this."
The win over UNC gave the Blue Devils an added boost because of the schools' heated rivalry. The two squads face each other regularly, and because the Tar Heels build up the rivalry and talk during the meets, the Duke fencers took extra satisfaction in the win.
"We have a big competition going with them," Halleran said. "They're real big on making a lot of noise and trying to beat us, but we defeated them pretty handily."
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