Update on End of Season

We are nearing the end of the lengthy fencing season. While the season lasts about three months, we also had practice every day during pre-season. Pre-season started in early September, and we will have our final practice next Tuesday, right before Nationals begin. From the beginning of September to March 21st, I have had practice every day of the week, and I could not be more excited to have some free time very soon. While I love being on the team, I am ready to take a break from profusely sweating for two hours every morning and rushing to get to my first class.

Since I have not made a passion blog post in quite some time, I will update you on some important fencing-related events that have occurred since my last post. We had our final dual meet of the regular season on February 26th at Temple University. While the women’s team lost to Princeton, we beat every other team squarely at this meet, including Temple- a very strong team who usually gives us a hard time. Our next meet was Regionals, which is the qualifier for Nationals, at Lafayette College. I qualified for this meet, but did not fence. I did, however, have a chance to come and watch my teammates fence. This meet was the most intense and competitive one I have ever seen. Everyone there wants to make it to Nationals, and every single touch in every bout matters. Overall, we did very well and ended up qualifying 10 out of the 12 maximum number of fencers to go to NCAAs. I was extremely proud to see how well my teammates fenced, especially the girls on my squad, who both qualified for Nationals.

My parents both fence as well, and they will be driving to Indianapolis to watch NCAAs. As we live in Virginia, they offered to come to State College and pick me up to go with them. I obviously could not say no. My mother fenced for Notre Dame in the 80s, so she will be rooting for Irish fencers while we are there. I will of course be cheering loudly for our Nittany Lions. While we are at a disadvantage to other teams who managed to qualify all twelve fencers, I believe we can be very successful at Nationals, and am hoping that we will finish in the top 3. Two of our biggest opponents- Columbia and Notre Dame, each qualified 12 fencers, so they are again our biggest competitors. The fencing team has a history of doing extremely well when we are in an underdog situation, so I am positive it will go very well.

Since next week I will be done with fencing practice for the year, I want to set some fitness goals for myself for the remainder of the year. I will be tempted not to workout entirely, but I want to try to get to the gym at least three times a week. With fencing practice, it is not difficult to keep active because you have a set schedule with the same practice times every day. I will soon have to motivate myself to go work out on my own time. I want to try to motivate my teammates to come workout with me, as this will facilitate my own workout sessions, as well as push others to keep active.

Thanks for reading!

Stefania