The fans, including the wrestling team,  that were at the first fencing match of this season on December 13 in the Fr. Theodore Field House cheered the team early on.

 The fencing team lost 19-8 against Masters Academy.

The Gray Bees started off strong with UDI Noah Acevedo winning the bout 5-2 using a sabre. The team continued to be strong in the first half of the match, but the second half went downhill, as Masters began to win more and more bouts.

Fencing coach, Jeff Austin says that the fencing team is “terrible” so far this season. There are struggles in the team building because of new people and people who just are not committed.

Mr. Austin says that a key factor to have a winning season this year is to train kids who want to become fencing champions and not just fence for an activity.

According to UDI Yovany Jimenez, one of the team’s strong points was footwork. Senior Elijah Acevedo demonstrated his great footwork as he went undefeated using the foil.

 The team lacks experience and needs time to develop better skills Yovany said. There are a lot of first year fencers this season such as freshman Sunny Kagabo that lack experience. “We were up against more experienced fencers,” Yovany said.

Yovany said that the team needs to learn to fight to the very end no matter what. Courage is another crucial part to winning any match you play, and Sunny showed a lot of courage that night as he went 2-1. “We can improve on courage throughout the season,” Yovany said.

Overall they showed great fight throughout the match, but at the end of the night it did not add up to a win.