Fencing With Pride and Passion Into ACC Championships

College fencing is a sport historically dominated by a number of well-known, traditional powerhouses. Their years of tradition and history form a foundation for success that once insulated those teams and programs from their peers. The top remained the top, and the rest dared not compete.

The more recent years are starting to change that perception, with Boston College in a pack of programs surging against the well-known proletariat. This week, the Eagles will head to Notre Dame for the ACC Championships with eight national votes in men's fencing and an experienced, veteran, cohesive women's team. It's a team ready to make noise against both Notre Dame and Duke, two of the nation's top-ranked teams, as part of the four-team conference tournament.

"There's a little bit of defiance and edge to Boston College fencing," head coach Brendan Doris-Pierce said. "One of the major parts of our team identity over the past couple of years is that defiance to the bigger programs. We can stand there as proud as possible and fence as hard as possible without being intimidated by a big name program. It's taken us to the threshold a couple of times this year, and now we just have to believe that it can take us over the hump this weekend."

Shocking some of the ACC won't come by chance; it'll be the result of the team's cumulative performance over the course of the season. The Eagles opened the season by winning the NEIFC Invitational, then moved into a conference battle in the Northeast Fencing Conference meets. The two-meet series, at Brown in November and hosted by BC in January, saw BC beat 12 teams in Rhode Island before clinching another conference title.

It was the second consecutive conference title for the men and the fifth consecutive title for the women.

"It was wonderful to open the Connell Center for fencing this year with a championship in men's and women's," Doris-Pierce said. "When we were at Brown, the men had to battle with Brown and the women had something similar with Wellesley College. It proved the conference is improving, and we're improving with it. So to win back-to-back titles became really rewarding, but to watch our teams fence great with a home court advantage, where people came out to watch them fence a few rounds, was tremendous."

The team performances came as the result of individualized success. In women's foil, Brooke Solsky took first place at the NEIFC Invitational before Kayla Moy and Kate Devereaux dominated the NFC meets. Moy went 22-4 across the two conference meets, while Deveraux lost only one match. She also added a 9-3 performance at the Eric Sollee Invitational.

Gillian Lawler, meanwhile, won 39 matches across those same three competitions and paired with Crystal Chen and Katarina Hone for success in sabre, and Christina Ko, Cosima Martus, Rylie Rueda and Laura Boden all formed a successful core for the epee discipline.

"The women's team battled the entire season," Doris-Pierce said. "They're a little older and a little more experienced than the men, so they were never out of a fight or competition. That enabled them to step up in every possible way.

"That team has a bunch of athletes who trained together for a long time," he explained. "It's an older squad, so they built each other and analyze each other. They'll take video and analyze it together. It's frank and honest about what people are doing right and wrong, and that's something that pushes people forward."

The men's side, meanwhile, took a different route with a younger and more raw roster with just four upperclassmen. Senior Connor Rounds led the sabre discipline with junior Ben Slavin, and junior Justin Herman enjoyed success foil, but the remainder of the roster, including the bulk of the epee discipline, remained either sophomores or freshmen. It created some more extreme ups and downs, but victories and strong performances permeated through talented fencers like Brian Wong, Bin Huang, Philip Acinapuro, Thomas Junseo Park, Will Smith and Michael Corban.

"The men's team is very young but very talented," Doris-Pierce said. "The energy, the talent, the passion - it's always there, but we've just had to develop a little bit more (on the piste). The teamwork is tremendous. There's familiarity with a number of our fencers, and having that long-term camaraderie helps a team work together to foster a collaborative effort."

It led the team right up to the cusp of shocking Notre Dame and Duke at the ACC Championships. The Eagles enter the weekend seeded No. 3 and No. 4 by the thinnest of margins against UNC, and it'll provide the team an opportunity to compete against the Fighting Irish, which rank No. 3 and No. 5 in the nation in women's and men's, respectively. Duke, unranked but receiving votes in women's, fills out the second seed with its No. 10-ranked men's team.

"The team rounds are very similar to everything that we do because it's a condensed version of something like the Beanpot," Doris-Pierce said. "The ACC individual rounds are more similar to the Northeast Regional competitions where athletes fence a number of rounds over the course of a day.

"The Beanpot was the most recent competition, and that gave us a little bit of sharpening before ACCs," he continued. "There's an affirmation for individuals to compete against the best in the country, and that's going to lead them to contribute individually to the team performance. We know that our men's team, for example, have athletes with good seasons, but now we want them to do it consistently at the same time. That's going to be key for this weekend."

That team-based approach to an individualized sport is exactly what the Eagles hope will carry them through this weekend. There's always been a harmonized approach to the sport in Chestnut Hill, and even though the sport is recognized for its individual merits, competing against and with one another is a big reason why the growth of Boston College fencing is ready to breakout and form the new forefront of its sport.

"(The ACCs) are good preparation for younger athletes who haven't gone through that day," Doris-Pierce said. "Our athletes have an advantage, though, because they've been through that before and gone this deep on days before, with 15 bouts in four hours. It's not new to them."

The ACC Fencing Championships start on Saturday and run through the weekend at Notre Dame. Live broadcast is available through the ACC Network Extra on the ESPN online streaming platform.

ACC Fencing Championships Schedule
Saturday, Feb. 22
8 a.m. - Men's Individual Tournament Begins
Noon - Men's Individual Semifinal Bouts
12:30 p.m. - Men's Individual Championship Bouts
(in the order of sabre, epee and foil)
1:30 p.m. - Women's Individual Tournament Begins
5:30 p.m. - Women's Individual Semifinal Bouts
6 p.m. - Women's Championship Bouts
(in the order of sabre, epee and foil)
7 p.m. - Men's & Women's Individual Awards

Sunday, Feb. 23
7 a.m. - Round One of Men's Team Event
(A vs D in Team Pod 1)
(B vs C in Team Pod 2)
8:30 a.m. - Round Two of Men's Team Event
(A vs C in Team Pod 1)
(B vs D in Team Pod 2)
10 a.m. - Round Three of Men's Team Event
(A vs B in Team Pod 1)
(C vs D in Team Pod 2)
11:30 a.m. - Men's Championship Awards
Noon - Round One of Women's Team Event
(A vs D in Team Pod 1)
(B vs C in Team Pod 2)
1:30 p.m.- Round Two of Women's Team Event
(A vs C in Team Pod 1)
(B vs D in Team Pod 2)
3 p.m. - Round Three of Women's Team Event
(A vs B in Team Pod 1)
(C vs D in Team Pod 2)
4:30 p.m. Women's Championship Awards

Fencing With Pride and Passion Into ACC Championships

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Philip Acinapuro

Laura Boden

Crystal Chen

Michael Corban

Kate Devereaux

Justin Herman

Katarina Hone

Bin Huang

Christina Ko

Cosima Martus

Kayla Moy

Thomas Junseo Park

Connor Rounds

Rylie Rueda

Ben Slavin

Will Smith

Brooke Solsky