Nov. 22, 2004
Before a large crowd of screaming fans in Roble Gym, the Stanford Fencing team took on the Cal Bears in their first collegiate competition of Fall Quarter. Cal, posed a formidable challenge for the Cardinal but also gave the young Stanford team valuable competition experience early on in the season.
In the men's competition, the foil team's, Richard Fulton, freshman, closed the gap so teammate Steve Gerberman could finish the tournament victoriously over the Cal Bears.
The women's foil competition was highlighted with strong performances by freshman, Rebecca Illowsky who tried to play catch up to a strong Cal Team. Margo Lipton competed well and kept the Bears on their toes coming close in several bouts.
The Sabre and Epee were "mixed". The Cal team had no women's sabre or epee so the cardinal women had to take on the Cal men. Mixed sabre and epee were undoubtedly the most heated competition of the night and saw the extremely strong performances of Curtis Andrus, sophomore Matt Burriesci, and junior, Aileen Malony who helped defeat Cal by a score of 4 points. Finally, in the mixed epee the Cal team prevailed after the Stanford women fought hard against the Cal men. Unfortunately, by the time the men came on board the gap was too big to make up and time ran out on Martin Lee, the star epeeist.
Thursday night's competition gave the Stanford team a good idea of the competition that they will be facing later this year when they travel to New York/Chicago.