AfterCounties

    Last season, the first for Ward Melville Fencing as a Varsity sport, coaches Jeff Salmon and Jennifer Dhondt set out not to lose all of their matches, and succeeded. This year, they strove for winning records and to achieve more All-County distinctions than the three they earned the year before.

     They achieved both goals.

     The Women's team finished third in Suffolk County with a record of 7-4-1, and three fencers received All-County distinctions. The men's team finished fifth in the county and fourth in the league with a record of 7-5-0, and eight fencers received All-County distinctions.

     The teams showed a marked improvement over last year, when the men finished 2-10 and the women finished 1-11. Salmon attributes this to "hard work and increase in skills and experience."

     "We've all put in a lot of hard work, made a lot of sacrifices," said junior Jamie Partridge. "And we're very pleased with our improvements."

     Success next season will require hard work between now and then, Salmon said.

     "Next year it still looks very good," he said. "We're going to be at a loss, losing some of our seniors, on both the girls and the guys. The girls look extremely strong, since we only lost one senior [Adrienne Heflich], although she was a major contributor. If the girls do some hard work over the off-season, they have a chance for the county championship. The boys are a little more dispersed. Losing some of our seniors will make a deep hole in some places. Once again, the hard work in the off-season can easily fill these holes," He added that the goals for both teams will be to finish in the top three in both the league and the county.

     Salmon said that fencing differs from "more publicized sports" in that students who join the team are far less likely to have fenced before. This, however, has allowed many underclassmen to take leadership roles on the team, though this will change as the program continues.

     "It takes years to get good at," Salmon said. "The footwork and the technique take a long time to develop. Most of the team last year were ninth and tenth graders, and a few eighth graders made the team. So since the team has started out young, I've been lucky in that case... that will change as the years go on. You'll see mostly juniors and seniors taking those top spaces because now they've grown up."

     Salmon hopes, however, to see a fencing program in the area to teach basic skills to younger students.

     "I've had maybe two people that have had any kind of prior instruction," he said. "I sort of expect it, that's fine, that's not an issue. [But] I hope to have some sort of intramural program or youth program so that, when thy do come in as ninth graders, they have some experience previously. The other teams all have these programs and it's going to be difficult to compete against them without having those couple of years prior to high school of experience and skill level."

     Despite this lack of experience, Salmon fells the team were successful because of the expectations he and Dhondt set for them.

    "We set the bar very high for our students," he said. "We have a lot of experience at higher levels, and we know that the kids can achieve, and we expect more from them. And I think that's been the essence of success so quickly, is that our expectations are a lot higher, and because of that they've achieved more quickly."

     Two male fencers and four female fencers placed at the County Meet at Huntington High School at the County Meet at Huntington High School on Saturday, February 10. Sophomore James Caston placed fifth in Men's Sabre; Partridge placed fifth in Men's Epee; junior Tamar Fuhrer placed sixth in Women's Sabre; freshman Angela Louison placed third in Women's Foil; Heflich placed fourth, and sophomore Katie Cook placed fifth, in Women's Epee.