Great post @“helmut?”
For those experiencing NCAA competition for the first time, enjoy! I have always found NCAA events much more enjoyable than the national circuit. Everyone has wound down their stress clocks and really embraces the spirit of college competition. Also, some trite words of advice - It goes so quickly. In the blink of an eye you will be at your kid’s graduation, probably leaving fencing behind as well. Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy…
Thank you @BrooklynRye
Thanks @BrooklynRye — My kid really enjoyed the team spirit, said it was such a different experience from domestic/national or international team fencing. But now, headed right back to more prelims and lots of homework! I really admire all of the athletes who keep competing at the college level, it takes a lot of love for the sport, time management and determination to juggle it all.
My daughter’s team finished around 9 PM or so, from what I could tell. She said she was tired and a little dizzy from the long day so we didn’t talk much…just shared a couple of texts. I look forward to hearing about it tomorrow after she rests and hydrates. The team and she had a good showing. Nice way to open the season.
For the Elite Invitational, did anybody find a place where full results were posted by any chance?
@SpaceVoyager My daughter’s school posted the team’s results on their fencing page. To get an idea prior to that I went to the twitter and team pages of the schools they competed against. I haven’t found one results posting of the entire tournament.
I was at the Elite Invitational for a round to cheer on kids of some parent-friends from the NAC circuit (we also had lunch with our older non-fencing daughter who is a grad student at Penn).
ShanFerg3 is correct that scanning the social media feeds and team pages of the various participating schools is probably the best way to get a picture of how things went overall. IIRC, Penn (among other host schools) had posted the score sheets in past years, but I don’t see any posted at the moment.
From my short spectating stint, I saw/heard of a few upsets on the women’s front (UNC over Penn, Yale over PSU). The Princeton women won all of their matches (including one vs. powerhouse Notre Dame) on the day, and I think promises to be a very strong contender this year if the members of its lean squad can stay healthy.
I was also reminded of how great the atmosphere at NCAA meets is compared to USA Fencing tournaments…but also how some kids really need to wash their whites more frequently. 
ETA: FWIW, for the few match-ups I saw, it was interesting to see a lot of freshman carrying the load for their respective teams — but also cool to see some of the veterans solidifying their reputations as true bad-asses.
@SevenDad that’s awesome that you got to have lunch with your daughter yesterday. I was able to steal away to New Haven a couple of mornings to have coffee with my daughter. Treasured it.
The Bulldogs did well. The Men went 4-1 and the Women 4-2. It seemed to be a REALLY long day for them.
@ShanFerg3: Yes, the dual meets can be long…I heard a similar comment from another parent whose kid fenced yesterday. And it can be even worse for the host school teams, as they often are called upon to help set up/take down any temporary strips/other tournament equipment. In the heart of the season (January-Feb), even the one-meet a week scheudle can be grueling, especially for those team that are traveling to a given meet.
I mentioned this in my recap of my daughter’s first NCAA meet last season, but one of the coolest things about college fencing is how your entire team can be watching can cheering for you — especially during those key bouts like where the team score is tied at 13-13. I got to see this display of team spirit for Yale vs. PSU, and the cheering was infectious.
@SevenDad I envy you. Looking forward to experiencing my first one. My daughter didn’t fence VS PSU. Matter of fact, even though her team won, it was the only team her weapon lost to yesterday. Epee went 5-0 vs the other teams. My daughter fenced against 4 of the 6 teams.
I feel the team aspect of College fencing really suits my daughter. She loves the camaraderie and losing herself in coming through for her teammates. I’m happy that she can have fun at competitions and with the experience. She’s always loved fencing. But, I don’t believe she loved the isolation of tournaments. As a parent it feels nice.
With all of the talk about the UPenn fencing tourney over the weekend, I thought this article from The Daily Pennsylvanian might be of interest.
https://www.thedp.com/article/2019/11/penn-volleyball-season-canceled-2019-posters
Penn’s volleyball team certainly isn’t the first, and it won’t be the last, to be suspended for off-court activities. And the fencing world is by no means immune to these problems - I distinctly recall seeing a “vulgar, offensive, and disrespectful” handwritten message on a whiteboard during a tour of a fencing team’s locker room in 2015.
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@EmptyNester2016 Sounds like Penn’s Issues extend past whatever was on those posters. Doesn’t seem like an isolated case to me.
Folks…a quick update on the migration of the “Unverifiable Rumors and Dubious Gossip About 20XX Collegiate Incoming Fencers” info to College Confidential.
We have been working with the originator/archivist of that Fencing.net thread (which now defunct thanks to shutdown of Fencing.net forums) to move it to CC. After all, what better place than a platform that is by definition confidential/anonymous (mostly)!
Here’s how it’s going to work:
I will set up a NEW thread (probs next week), independent of this one with the title “Unverifiable Rumors and Dubious Gossip About 2020 Collegiate Incoming Fencers”. The first post will provide info on how to get info to me — I am going to suggest PMs for this, btw. I think public posts, especially in the timeframe before the official mid-December ED notification window, could feed speculation/spread incorrect info.
Then, in mid-December, I will release the first iteration of the spreadsheet. Still working on a way to do this that doesn’t violate CC guidelines…but I have time.
Really glad you’re doing this @SevenDad. For most of us fencing fans it’s like watching the NBA/NFL draft. Exciting to see where the young fencers we’ve seen put in the work over the years continue their journeys. I’m happy this tradition isn’t dying with the Fencer.net forums.
@ShanFerg3: I hope we were able to do as good a job as Ancient Epee did with it! Have already gotten a few submissions.
BTW, I wanted to share a few examples of how many schools share the actual score sheets from dual meets.
From the Penn Elite Invitational a few weeks ago…go to the team’s schedule and then click on the “Box Score” link next to any of the match-ups shown.
https://pennathletics.com/documents/2019/11/16//Penn_vs_UNC_Both.pdf
And, from the recent Brandeis Invitational, click on “Schedule/Results” on the Brandeis Fencing page, then click on “Results”:
https://www.brandeisjudges.com/sports/wfencing/2019-20/schedule
Note that not every school seems to post results links as above, but some do.
ETA: I changed the Brandeis link above as I think the original was to a google docs page — which is not allowed.
Thank you @SevenDad for posting this. I viewed both links previously and it’s a lot of work trying to keep up with the results of the NCAA tournaments in real time!
@SevenDad — have you created the new post re:college acceptances already, and if so, would you share the link? Thanks!
@RRRtex: Not yet…still waiting on CC admin approval.
Does anyone know what happened to Harvard’s sabre coach Gamal Mahmoud?
He was there for years and now he is no longer listed on the website…
There was no publicity covering this.
Thanks.