Livingston High Felled By Columbia Fencers

By Steven E. Brier

DEC. 17, 2006 -- The fencing team from Columbia High School started its season strong Friday night, dominating the less-experienced Livingston High School team with coach Daryl White’s boys team racking up 23 wins to four losses and coach Nicole Lechner’s girls team going 26 and 1. The teams are now 1-0 on the season and the girls extend their winning streak to 54.

“We were in control the whole way,” volunteer coach Doc Paulina said. “The girls lost their first bout, then went on to win the next 26. The boys clinched at 14 and 4, then went on to win the next nine,” he said.

There were a number of high points in the meet. The boys team saw Falcon Reese, a freshman foilist, get his first varsity victory as did Ben Gold, a sophomore fighting epee.

On the girls team, junior Karin Oxford got her first victory in sabre, having fenced foil previously, and freshman Maddie Williams won with epee on her first time out.

“I tell everybody to come prepared to fence” whether they’re starters or not, Paulina said. “Ben (Gold) and Maddie (Williams) hadn’t missed a practice yet and I put them in.”

Other standouts on the girls team were senior Sarina Appelgren, who went 3-0 on foil as well as a string who went 2-0, including senior Lissie Couper (sabre), juniors Margaret Brier (epee), Jelissa Grant (foil), Michelle Micallef (foil), Juliet Turalski (sabre) and sophomores Nikki Lee (foil) and Ricky Drattler (foil). The girls team was undefeated in foil and epee.

On the boys team, a number of seniors went 2-0, including David Llanes (sabre), team captain Shaun Geiger (foil), team captain Ethan Kresofsky (foil), Justin Phillips, (epee) and Paul Wilkening (epee).

Livingston is a relatively new team, having been around only two years. It’s been longer than that, almost four years, since the CHS girls have lost a meet. Though comparatively inexperienced, Paulina said the Livingston fencers fought hard.

“I thought their team, especially boys sabre, was much improved,” Paulina said. “There was a big difference this year with Livingston. They had a lot more enthusiasm and were much more competitive. All the boys bouts were very close. The first four bouts were one-touch bouts.”

One sign of that improvement was the number of bouts that went to 4-4. Fencers need five touches to win. The Columbia girls had eight bouts going to the 4-4 mark and won them all, including Lee on foil and Brier on epee. The boys also had eight bouts at 4-4 and won six of them, including one by senior epeeist Wilkening.

“Once we lost a lot of 4-4 bouts. We didn’t practice for close bouts. Now we’re at 70 percent in 4-4,” Paulina said. “Notre Dame lost a national championship when Nicole (coach Lechner) was a junior there and they only won 25 percent of their 4-4 bouts. The next year they practiced that and came back. The practice worked for them and it works for us.”

That sort of experience is the telling difference in a match, Paulina said, experience a younger team may not have. “We practice the 4-4. We practice moves for when you have a lot of time left and when there’s little time. We practice when you’re up a touch or down a touch. If you’ve been there before (in practice) then you can do it in a match.”

The CHS team next faces Mendham, and Paulina does not expect a pushover.

“Mendham had a club team four years ago. This is their third varsity year, and their girls team is very strong,” he said.

That meet takes place at five tonight at the team’s temporary home in the New Jersey Fencing Alliance facility at 50-58 Burnett Avenue in Maplewood.