The #3 Columbia women continued their impressive season in round-2 of the Ivy League Championships, posting a 19-8 win over #9 Pennsylvania. In other round-2 action, the #5 Harvard women registered a 21-6 win over Cornell to keep pace with the Columbia women atop the round-robin standings.
The Lions clinched the win with over Penn with 7-2 victories in foil and sabre, also claiming a 5-4 edge in epee. Columbia fencers posted 3-0 records in all three weapons (foil All-American Nicole Ross, epeeist Tess Finkel and sabreist Stephanie Aiuto). Five other Lions fencers went 2-1, as the Columbia women improved to 8-2 overall this season (with losses to #2 Notre Dame and St. John's).
Columbia All-America sabreist Doria Schneider has yet to fence today and possibly is attending another event – but her teammates Aiuto, All-American Jackie Jacobson and newcomer Sammy Roberts (both 2-1) combined for the seven wins over a Quakers squad that includes All-American Danielle Kamis and two-time NCAA participant Alexis Baran.
Ross and one of her foil teammates posted wins over Penn All-American Ilana Sinkin, while the epee team's win included three wins from Finkel (a two-time NCAA participant) and two victories by freshman Neely Brandfield-Harvey.
Penn epeeist Kathryn Athony (2-1) was the only Quakers fencer to post a winning record, in the team's first match of the tournament.
Harvard dominated all three weapons in the win over Brown (8-1 in foil, 7-2 in sabre and 6-3 in epee), paced by 3-0 records from Olympian Emily Cross, fellow foilist Anna Podolsky, the epee duo of Maria Larsson and Noam Mills, and freshman sabreist Carolina Vloka.
Cornell – which opened the day with a win over Brown – received another solid showing from All-America sabreist Alex Heiss, who posted a pair of wins but lost to Vloka.