The Harvard-Princeton matchup projected to be one of the most competitive in the Ivy League Championships and that certainly proved to be the case in the women's match, with the #5 Crimson edging the #7 Tigers by a single point (14-13). In the men's competition, #5 Princeton turned in a 17-10 win over #7 Harvard.
Sunday's results mirrored the meetings from earlier in the season, when the Harvard women beat Princeton (17-10) and the Tigers men edged the Crimson (14-13).
The Princeton women actually won two of the weapons against Harvard (6-3 in sabre, 5-4 in foil), but the Crimson's epee unit went 7-2 to deliver the team victory. Three talented newcomers went 3-0 in the tense battle: Harvard sabreist Caroline Vloka (the reigning Penn State Open champion) and epeeist Noam Mills, along with Princeton foilist Lucille Jarry. Eight other fencers went 2-1, in the highly competitive showdown.
Olympian Emily Cross (the '05 NCAA champion) was the only member of Harvard's deep women's foili unit that posted a winning record (2-1), with the fifth-year senior losing to the upstart Jarry. Harvard's decisive epee victory included the three wins from Mills, plus 2-1 records by All-American Maria Larrson and Lisa Vastola. Both of Princeton's epee wins came from newcomer Susannah Scanlan, with All-American Jasjit Bhinder losing both of her bouts versus Princeton.
(Note: we mistakingly left Mills out of the earlier blog posting for top women's epee newcomers; she now has been added to that listing – the mistake was due to Princeton also having a top newcomer with the same last name, foilist Alexander Mills).
Princeton's victory in the men's match included weapon wins in foil (8-1) and sabre (6-3), while Harvard claimed a 6-3 epee margin. The match featured four fencers who went 3-0: Harvard sabreist Valentin Staller, the Princeton foil duo of Clayton Flanders and Alexander Mills, and Harvard epeeist star Benji Ungar (the 2006 NCAA champion). All three Princeton sabreists – Thomas Abend, NCAA Tournament veteran John Stogin and Craig Limoli – went 2-1 in the match, as did Princeton foilist Gregory Kirschen along with two of the epeeists (Princeton All-American Graham Wicas and Harvard's Karl Harmenberg).
Harvard appeared to have the edge in men's foil, led by three-time NCAA participant Kai Itameri-Kinter (a 2006 All-American) and 2008 NCAA entrant Long Ouyang, but Princeton won five of six bouts against that duo (Itameri-Kinter was 1-2, Ouyang 0-3) – with Flanders (also a 2008 NCAA participant) and Mills both sweeping those top opponents.