[AFA] Novice Cup: Season One
June 8th marked the final tournament of the 9 tournament inaugural Novice Cup season. We at Apex Fencing Academy would like to extend a huge THANK YOU to everyone that participated and to the coaches, referees, volunteers, family and friends. Without your support this series would not have been as successful as it was. How successful was it you ask, well read on…
The Novice Cup began with the goal to give fencers with less than 2 years of competitive experience an opportunity to compete locally, earn points, and be recognized for their competitive achievements. Events were held for men & women’s Y10/Y12 foil, senior mixed epee, senior men’s foil and senior women’s foil. These events were open to all, but points were tracked for fencers with 2 years or less of competitive experience.
The first event was held on September 29th. Seven boys competed in the Y10/12 men’s foil, 4 girls in Y10/Y12, 3 in senior mixed epee, 9 in senior men’s foil and 12 in senior women’s foil. Without knowing what to expect, we were happy and called it a success.
Setting the schedule, we knew that we wanted to involve the students completing our introductory classes. Our introductory classes last 8 weeks and take you from an absolute beginner to a novice fencer with an understanding of the basics: etiquette, advance, retreat, lunge, parry, reposte, priority & scoring. Syncing the tournament schedule with the class schedule minimized one barrier of entry to the sport and allowed the newest fencers to try a taste of competition at home. The numbers in the second event confirmed this: Y10/12 men’s – 19, Y10/12 women’s – 8, senior mixed epee – 8, senior men’s foil 19, and senior women’s foil 10. Wow, many events doubled in size!
But that’s only the beginning; numbers kept climbing throughout the season. The full results are on our web page. Just to give you a flavor, here are the numbers for the Y10/Y12 men’s foil: 7, 19, 8, 24, 26, 16, 19, 17 & 23. In total, 60 Y10/Y12 boys with less than 2 years’ experience competed in a least one event during the season. Half of those youngsters competed in 2 or more tournaments. And two of those boys, Ben Rose & Yantao Wang competed in all 9! Amazing!
Numbers were strong in the other age groups too:
- 25 in Y10/12 women’s foil: 4, 8, 3, 9, 8, 9, 10, 3 & 11
- 19 in senior mixed epee: 3, 8, 6, 6, 11, 11, 3, 4 & 5
- 43 in senior men’s foil: 9, 19, 13, 23, 20, 12, 13, 6 & 14
- 19 in senior women’s foil: 12, 10, 6, 9, 9, 6, 2, & 5
That’s over 160 fencers with less than 2 years of competitive experience. Amazing! Never in our wildest dreams did we think we would draw the numbers you see above. These fencers came from across North Carolina to compete in these tournaments – Charlotte, Wilmington, New Bern, Durham, Chapel Hill and of course Apex.
So, after 9 tournaments, the numbers are in and here are the winners of the inaugural 2018-2019 Novice Cup. Each of these fencers received a trophy and their name was added to a plaque displayed at Apex Fencing Academy memorializing their accomplishment:
- Y10/Y12 men’s foil: Aiden Click & Tusker Robbins, both from Apex Fencing Academy
- Y10/Y12 women’s foil: Catherine Zulueta, Apex Fencing Academy
- Senior mixed epee: Ethan Horelano, Apex Fencing Academy
- Senior men’s foil: Jeremy Wang, Apex Fencing Academy
- Senior women’s foil: Victoria Schmidt, Research Triangle Fencing
Congratulations to our winners and to all of the competitors this season! Full results are here.
Next season, some of the competitors will age out of their category, and move up to the senior division. Others will have more than 2 years of competitive fencing under their belt. In any case, we hope to see everyone back next season. Don’t worry if you have more than 2 years of competitive experience; you can still compete in these tournaments, but your results won’t be calculated for the Novice Cup. Stay tuned for next season’s announcement and schedule. We hope to see you all there!
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