The Brown women impressively tied for third at the 2008 Ivy League Championships – thanks to wins over Harvard, Princeton and Yale – but the Bears lost a 14-13 heartbreaker to Cornell a year ago. Sunday's opening round of Ivy League bouting saw Cornell defeat Brown once again, this time by a 17-10 score.
The Big Red claimed easy wins in epee (8-1) and foil (6-3), while Brown similarly won easily in sabre (6-3). Cornell fencers in each weapon inished the match with 3-0 records: All-America sabreist Alex Heiss, foilist Jessica Tranquada (a 2008 NCAA entrant) and epeeist Katherine Thompson. All three Brown sabreists – All-American Randy Alevi, Deborah Gorth and Aleksandra Mackiewic – went 2-1 in round-1. as did Cornell foilist Rebecca Hirschfield and epeeist Sallie Dietrich.
Cornell has assembled an impressive three-fencer epee squad, with Thompson joined by 2008 NCAA participants Sallie Dietrich and Tasha Hall. We look forward to seeing how that unit holds up against Columbia's talented women's epee teams (the Cornell-Harvard epee bouts also could yield some interesting results).
In addition to its sabreists, Brown's noteworthy women's fencers include Francesca Bartholomew (a 2008 NCAA participant who went 12-6 at the '08 Ivy League Championships). Bartholomew won twice versus Cornell, losing to fellow NCAA Tournament veteran Tranquada.