Hun’s Baptiste, PDS’ Schroeder lead squads
By Justin Feil, Assistant Sports Editor
Andrew Schroeder was looking for an improvement over last year and an encouraging exit in his final prep state fencing tournament.
Noelle Baptiste was just looking for a good start.
Both got what they were looking for with second-place finishes individually, and Baptiste shared in leading the Hun School girls epee to the squad win while Schroeder helped the Princeton Day School boys sabre win silver as a squad Wednesday at PDS.
”It felt really, really good,” Baptiste said. “I was excited. I didn’t really expect to do that. I’ve only been fencing for about two years. I’m only a sophomore.”
The Hun girls placed sixth in foil, seventh in sabre and fourth overall. The Hun boys were fourth in sabre, fifth in foil, sixth in epee and fifth overall.
The PDS boys were sixth in foil, seventh in epee and seventh overall. The PDS girls were fourth in sabre, fifth in foil, seventh in epee and seventh overall.
Individually, PDS’ Carla Tamburro was third in girls foil, PDS’ Alex Ioffreda was fifth in boys foil, Hun’s Alex Barker was eighth in boys epee, Hun’s Tom McNulty was seventh in boys foil, Hun’s Tim Yeh was sixth and teammate Michael Koo was seventh in boys sabre. Yeh is the only senior in the Hun bunch.
Baptiste was only a JV fencer last year, and she might have been on the outside looking again Wednesday if another fencer had chosen to return to the team this year. Instead, she joined forces with Hun juniors Danielle Walsh, who finished third individually, and Erin Lee, who was fourth, to help capture the squad title over Gill-St. Bernards.
”That was a surprise too,” Baptiste said. “We were sort of in a slump at the beginning of the season. We’ve been working hard in practice and improving. We weren’t expecting it, but we could see that all of our hard work paid off.
”Next year,” she added, “we’re hoping to get first, second, third.”
For Schroeder, the state tournament was the culmination of four consistent years of contributing to the Panthers. Schroeder was able to break into the starting lineup in sabre as a freshman.
”Being able to come in as a freshman and be a force on the team made it a lot easier to be on the team,” said Schroeder, who took up fencing while living in Seattle before moving to Hopewell in seventh grade. “It eased me into a leadership role.”
Schroeder was thrilled to be able to lead the sabre squad to a strong finish to its season with fellow senior Matthew Wasser and junior Will Westcott.
”For me, performing for the team was more important than individuals,” Schroeder said. “This isn’t something I thought I had to do individually. As a senior, I didn’t want to screw up for our team. It was great to be able to go out on a high note.”
Schroeder hadn’t felt good about his performance last year, his only off showing in four years, even though the Panthers won the squad title. He wanted to make up for it.
”I really did not contribute to that win,” Schroeder recalled. “That was a rough day for me. The year before that, I think we might have also won and I was in the (individual) finals. Freshman year, I don’t think we won the squad, but as the whole team, the guys won. And I made it to the finals that year too.”
Having been there and experienced success before, Schroeder had hoped for a good showing in his final state tournament. He got it by placing behind only Charles Efthimion of Gill individually and behind St. Benedict’s in the squad competition.
”Individually, I’ve known Charles Efthimion and Patrick (Glodkowski of Ranney, who was fourth) a little bit,” Schroeder said. “Personally, I knew it would be a tough one. For our squad, I was impressed how we did. It was kind of a surprised. We fenced St. Benedict’s in a dual match early this year, and we got killed. We didn’t win (at states), but it was nice to have some respect.”
Schroeder earned plenty of respect throughout this season. There are less than a handful of fencers that got the better of him in his final scholastic season before he eyes fencing in college.
”This year, I only had three losses,” Schroeder said. “Last year and the year before, I only had about five or six and the wins weren’t much different. The big difference is how I go about doing that.
”Freshman year, it might have been iffy, kind of messy. Whereas now I’m a lot more professional about it. Developing as an athlete in that aspect has been a part of it. Most of it is just being involved in the team and trying to help out the other kids.”
Schroeder helped to elevate the Panthers as a senior while leaving them with a perfect example of finishing strong.
Baptiste and the Hun girls epee squad are just starting. All three of its epeeists will be back, and if they’re all like Baptiste, they’re going to be better next year. She hasn’t even begun fencing in national outside competitions. Other fencers at the biggest state tournament, the Santelli tournament, kept asking her what her outside ranking was, but she doesn’t have one yet.
”At Santelli, I beat some nationally ranked people,” Baptiste said. “For our team, personally I went undefeated. It was so exciting. I felt like a superstar.”
Success has come quicker than she expected. The daughter of Hall of Fame Rider University basketball alum Alberto Baptiste, she stands 5-foot-8 but wasn’t going to use her height for hoops.
”Fencing caught my eye two years ago,” Baptiste said. “At Princeton Day School, I took a summer camp there. I liked it.
”I started fencing at Mr. Ma in South Jersey last summer. I just kind of picked it up. I’m hoping to improve a lot more and go places with it. I started out on foil and I moved to epee. For epee, I guess it was my advantage that I was taller and stronger. I did ballet for 12 years. I think that helped too with epee.”
It’s been quite a year for Baptiste. Her first varsity season ended with a squad championship and a silver medal individually.
”It really boosts my confidence,” said the East Windsor resident. “It makes me more competitive. It makes me want to keep this title or move on.”
In second place this year, there’s only one more spot higher for her, and nowhere more for the Raider girls epee squad to go as they plan to try for an encore next year.
”It was a pretty exciting season with all our games and Santelli,” Baptiste said. “And now that this is over, it was really exciting. It was exciting and shocking at the same time. It was a good year for everyone.”