Tar Heel Women's Fencing Finishes 1-4 At Duke Meet

Sunday, February 7

Durham, N.C.

8:00 AM

North Carolina

Duke Dual Meets (Women)

February 8, 2016 | Fencing

By: UNC Athletic Communications

The UNC women's fencing team competed at the Duke Meet on Sunday, finishing with the same 1-4 record the men had on Saturday. In action at Card Gym in Durham, N.C., the Tar Heels defeated Brandeis 17-11 but fell to No. 2 Notre Dame, No. 9 Penn State, No. 10 Temple and host Duke.

“The women fenced well against Temple and had good chances to do better,” UNC coach Ron Miller said. “This was one of those weekends that when I look closely at all of the score sheets, I suspect I'll see a very low win ratio in 5-4 bouts. The women fenced well against Brandeis and also against did so against Duke, but couldn't win the 5-4 bouts in that one.”

The men's team also learned lessons from its action on Saturday, which included a win over Brandeis but opened with a 14-13 loss to Johns Hopkins. “The men had some hard lessons to learn,” Miller said. “We had a shot to beat Johns Hopkins, which had done some damage to us first time we fenced them this season. We came back from a sizeable margin and but it didn't happen and that set the tone. We did bounce back against Brandeis. Against the more difficult teams, the individual weapon squads at times fenced exceedingly well but the men never really got it all together. The biggest disappointment for me as a coach was lack of focus in the first meet. We'll work on it. They learned a valuable lesson.”

Most of the team has a weekend off before competing again. Freshman Jason Xu is the lone Tar Heel who will fence at the Junior Olympics Feb. 12-15 in Cleveland, Ohio. The next team competition is the Philadelphia Invitational on Feb. 21. That event was rescheduled from Jan. 23 after it was postponed by snow.

“We need to sit down and look at why we're not closing bouts,” Miller said. “It's been an issue most of season but even more so this weekend. That will be our focus in next two weeks. We've got to find a way to get that last touch.”

Duke Meet Women's Results

Sunday, Feb. 7

Round 1: Temple 19, UNC 8

Sabre: Temple 6-3

Foil: Temple 5-4

Epee: Temple 8-1

Round 2: UNC 17, Brandeis 11

Sabre: UNC 5-4

Foil: UNC 7-2

Epee: UNC 5-4

Round 3: Duke 15, UNC 12

Sabre: UNC 8-1