Hallie Morrison, Angela Louison, and Kerry Keegan competed in the Women's Foil Event for Ward Melville. Lady Patriots Katie Cook and Christine Marzano combated in Women's Epee. Tamar Fuhrer represented Women's Sabre. [Two alumni represented Men's Foil: Matt Claeson, graduating class of 1998, who now attends SUNY Stony Brook, and Kevin McKittrick (WM '99), who also participated in the epee event and attends Lehigh University in Pennsylvania]. Jamie Partridge and Mike Perlmutter competed in epee, and James Caston and Alum Ben Ellis, who graduated in 2001 and now attends Plattsburgh State, competed in Men's Sabre.
Fencing at Ward Melville started out as just a club. However two years ago, the development of a team took place - a determined team, diverse in experience. Fencers on the Ward Melville team trained regularly during the season, practicing five times a week. As nationals approached, many of the fencers attended a training camp the week before the nationals run by their coaches, Jeff Salmon and Jennie Dhondt.
"My coach ran a little program where we go over to his house at seven in the morning and spent the whole day there doing training and conditioning and footwork," said Marzano.
Others attended a fencing camp at Ohio State University. "Since the season ended in February, I've been going to the fencing club one or two times a week... I attended as many local and regionals as possible and I went to a fencing camp at Ohio State University the week before nationals," said Fuhrer. Whatever the method of preparation, fencers were excited about working hard in hope to succeed at the upcoming event.
Three girls received a bronze for the epee event, including Cook and Marzano. On winning the bronze, Cook said "It was really fun, because it was my first time there, so to do good the first time, it's exciting."
Despited their hard work, none of the other members expected the outcome to be so rewarding. "We were just doing it for fun and now it's really serious in our lives. I really love it," said Cook. Coach Dhondt, however, had high expectations for the team all along. "Definitely, we always hold high expectations, but we're pleased with the learning curve of the kids. They're definitely putting a lot of effort into [fencing] so they're getting results pretty quickly"
The coaches were pleased with the team's effort and with the results at the competition. "I was extremely happy with what the team learned... they really did a good job learning the skils," said Coach Salmon.
Aspirations for this year have improved with the team's success. We have a really strong team this year so we're hoping to take first place in counties. Last year we took third place, which was really good because it was only our second year as a team. We're really advancing quite quickly and we're hoping that this year we can get first [place]," said Morrison.
Coach Dhondt was extremely pleased with the experience and knowledge that the fencers gained from attending such a grand event. "The best thing about it was the kids out there outside of high school fencing".