Singh’s example raised MHS level
By Bob Nuse, Sports Editor
Ambika Singh had a nearly perfect high school fencing season.
In matches, she was perfect, going 37-0 in foil for Montgomery High.
But because of her international success as a fencer, she was not able to fence in two of the bigger high school events. She missed the Santelli Tournament and also the District tournament, which kept her out of the state tournament.
”Her not going to districts had all the other foil fencers in the state applauding, I’m sure,” said Montgomery High coach Johanna Snedeker.
History would tell us that had Singh participated in those tournaments she would have had a pretty good chance to win both. Last month during a tournament in Italy, she defeated Viktoria Nikichina of Russia in a match. Nikichina had won the gold medal in the women’s team foil event at the 2008 Olympics.
”It was tough to miss those tournaments, but I had other tournaments,” said Singh, a junior who was in her first season with the Cougars after transferring from the Hun School, where she also never lost a match. “I really enjoy the experience of high school fencing. It is much different than the international competition. It’s great that when you win a match it counts for your team. It’s different and it is fun.
”New Jersey as a state is known for having strong high school fencing programs. So there were a lot of good matches for us.”
The addition of Singh helped the Cougars’ entire program this year. After winning just two matches last year, the Montgomery girls went 15-4 this season.
”There are two things to me that sum it up,” Montgomery coach Johanna Snedeker said. “Last year we lost a number of matches in the final match or late in the match when it was 13-13 or 13-12. We were close, but we did not get that edge. Ambika brought in that edge for us. The level of the whole team was raised because of her skill level.
”The other thing is that she would go to give advice, make suggestions, support or just compliment another fencer, they would just stop and listen to what she had to say. They all just valued her words. It was interesting to see because every girl would listen to every word she would say. Her input this season was invaluable.”
Ambika Singh is the Princeton Packet Girls Fencer of the Year.
”She is quite an amazing young lady,” Snedeker said. “There are some athletes who raise the level of the whole team and she is one of those athletes. It all came together for us this year and produced an awesome season.
”She missed the Santelli and District tournaments when she was away at major tournaments. But with someone of her talent and skill level, she is going to be in those situations where she will be competing at an international level. She still competed in most of our matches and was undefeated.”
Singh missed a couple of the high school events to compete at the international level. She was the silver medalist at the 2009 Junior Olympics, finished eighth in the North American Cup, won a bronze medal at the Cadet Europa Cup in Austria, and finished with the second most points in the senior International Circuit in 2009.
”A lot of the national and international events conflict with the high school season,” Singh said. “So I missed out on the individual tournaments for high school. I had missed the state individuals my first two years at Hun because Hun does not participate as a prep school. So I was hoping to get to compete there. I also missed the Santelli.
”I was there for all the team matches and that was important. I had some really challenging matches this season. I thought the whole experience of fencing with the Montgomery team was a lot of fun. Our coach is really nice and the whole team is very close. It was great to go from two wins last year to the record we had this year.”
Singh was not the sole reason for the Cougars improvement, but she played a big part. And just having her on the team seemed to make everyone else better.
”She is such an unassuming athlete,” Snedeker said. “She is very dedicated to the team at Montgomery and the other athletes on the team. You could see how much she enjoyed it just by looking at her.”
Added Singh: “It’s not just me. I only get three wins in a match for the team. It was the total team that made the difference this year. We had a great year together.”