Cougars shift focus to squads
By Justin Feil, Assistant Sports Editor
The best year in Montgomery High School girls fencing history will have many accolades when it is finally over, but the team state championship will not be among them.
Fourth-seeded Northern Highlands spoiled the top-seeded Cougars’ perfect season with a 14-13 win in the state semifinals Wednesday. Northern Highlands jumped out to a 6-3 lead after the first round of bouts, and though the Cougars battled back, they came up just short.
”When we talked after, we emphasized that this was an amazing year,” said MHS head coach Johanna Snedeker after her team slipped to 16-1. “And it’s not over. Squad states are on Sunday. We have a number of fencers going to individuals.
”It has been an amazing year. They can go a whole career and never see this. We’re disappointed because we had three opportunities to win it, one in each weapon, but didn’t pull through.”
Northern Highlands had one thing that the Cougars did not — they had been to the state finals before. Northern Highlands lost in the state final last year and was hungry for a chance to return. They proved it with a great first round that helped them hold off Montgomery’s 5-4 advantages in both the second and third rounds.
”We knew their sabre was going to be formidable,” Snedeker said. “They got us in the early round and took all three of sabre. We got behind and as much as we almost caught up, we had several bouts that came close but didn’t go in our favor.
”Epees did well against them. We lost a bout early on in the first round and after that they had that edge all the way through. Alanna Liu came very close, but didn’t take that one. In the end, they eked us out.”
The MHS epee squad finished 8-1. Sarah Caputo and Lauren DeLucia were each 3-0 for the Cougars. The foil squad picked up its only three wins from Ambika Singh, who will miss the squad championships due to a club conflict Sunday. Anjali Ramaswamy picked up the only two Cougars wins in sabre.
”Coming out of the Santelli, they were No. 2 in sabre,” Snedeker said of Northern Highlands. “By losing all three sabres, we knew foil would be a challenge, and knew sabre would be a challenge, but then taking a loss in epee in the first round, it was a bit of a blow. We could have picked it up if we had an additional foil or additional sabre win in the second round.”
The match came down to a touch here or there being able to change the outcome. The Cougars can hold their heads high knowing that they were just a win away from advancing to the state final.
”Three times, if it had just gone the other way, we’d have had that one other win we needed,” Snedeker said. “Going into the final round, our epee, we knew we could pick up those three (wins), but we needed to get one more outside of that.
”I’m disappointed more for the girls,” she added. “We knew if we could get through Northern Highlands, we could probably do well. It was close.”
The Cougars shift their focus from the team states to showing off their squad strength. They will fence in Sunday’s state squad championships and could add to their already impressive resume.
”I know my epeeists are going to do very well,” Snedeker said. “The foil will be minus Ambika, so they’ll have to dig deep to stay on top. My sabres, they’ll do well. They have to fight for it as well. And we’re looking for our epees to really shine.”