Jess Sherman is a sophomore on the NYU women's fencing team. She will share her thoughts in this space throughout the 2011-12 season.
Written December 7, 2011
So this is my first year not being a freshman, and it’s definitely going to be an exciting one. We lost a great captain and fencer when Amanda graduated, along with many other great people on our team, and I was not sure if we could recover from those losses.
However, I was pleasantly surprised by this year’s freshmen. We have many of them, and they are a dedicated group. We have especially had some great additions in foil: on the men’s team we now have Andrew Ark and David Popkin, while in women’s foil we gained Audra Fox and some great girls. It looks like we are going to have a pretty solid foil team this year.
But it’s not just the foil team that I think will do well. We have some great people all around, and this year’s captains: Lisa Verzino, Ricky Woodward, Hye Yeon Glass, Phil Jamesson, and Ben Radding are doing a great job.
We have had three tournaments so far: The Temple Open, a home meet with Drew and FDU, and the Penn State Invitational. Temple was great because it was our first competition as a team and gave us a chance to bond and get to know each other.
FDU/Drew was our first team event (at Temple we fenced as individuals) and it went great for the women’s team with solid wins against both of the other schools.
Penn State was a bit more difficult. Women’s foil did well against Vassar and Sacred Heart, but had some trouble against the tougher schools. But it was still a great learning experience, not only for the new fencers but for me as well. Coaches Ed Elterman, Steve Mormando, Kornel Udvarhelyi, and Lauren Willock were extremely helpful at this tournament, keeping us focused and coaching us for the entire day.
It gave me a chance to rethink my fencing and how I view competitions, just in time for the North American Cup this weekend in Kansas City, MO. Ricky Woodward and I are both attending this event, and the invitational at Penn State definitely helped me prepare for it, both mentally and physically. I am looking forward to fencing there, but I am also optimistic about the NYU Invitational at the end of January. We have some time to practice, and now that all of us have a few competitions under our belt I think it will go a bit more smoothly.
