Air Force Academy

Air Force Academy fencers concluded day two of the Falcon Open with the foil competition. Freshman Julie Luce was the women's foil champion.

After finishing 19th and 24th, respectively, in the mixed foil tournament, sophomore Collette Bannister and freshman Julie Luce advanced to the championship round in women's foil. Luce won the bout, 15-13. Bannister was the women's runner-up followed by sophomore Mryamn Ruth and freshman Kristen Bevins who tied for third place.

In the mixed foil division, senior Jackson Ranes tied for third place after losing in the semifinals, 8-12. "I fenced well and I was able to compete at the level that I wanted to. Although my results were not what I wanted, I was happy with the way I fenced overall this weekend and I also earned my D rating in foil," said Ranes. "I was also impressed with the level of competition at both the Nick Toth Open and the Falcon Open as the level of competition gets tougher each year."

Overall, four fencers won their individual events at the Falcon Open, Sam Bartron, mixed sabre, Katherine Gulczynski, women's sabre, Eliza Enyart, women's epee and Luce, women's foil. The overall results this weekend were not as expected according to head coach Abdel Salem. "The sabre and foil teams did what they were supposed to do, the epee team finished short of my expectations. However, it was good to see Eliza have such a strong finish in women's epee. We still have a lot of work ahead of us. The lack of experienced fencers has had an affect on our results especially in the epee tournament."

"As a whole, the team underachieved this weekend, the new fencers lack experience and our experienced fencers were over confident going into the tournament," commented Ranes.

Next week the Falcons will travel to Santa Fe, N.M., to compete in the New Mexico Open, Nov. 5-6.