Winning culture is building at MHS
By Justin Feil, Assistant Sports Editor
The Montgomery High School girls fencing team didn’t quite finish where it wanted, but finishing second in the state for the second straight year isn’t such a bad thing.
”We’re creating a culture that expects to be here,” said MHS head coach Johanna Snedeker. “Our seniors are passing that down. They said on the bus ride home, we expect to hear that you were here again next year.”
The Cougars will have their work cut out for them after graduating a strong class that has now been to back-to-back state finals. MHS fell to Northern Highlands, 18-9, Wednesday at Morris Hills to end their season. It was just their second loss of the year.
”In the end, everybody did their part, everybody did what they had to do,” Snedeker said. “We were up against a really incredibly talented team. We scored a lot of touches, but they got the wins in the bouts. We made them work for it.
”We had a number of bouts that went 4-4, but we just weren’t able to convert them to wins.”
Northern Highlands jumped out to a 3-0 lead by sweeping sabre before Juliet Job picked up Montgomery’s first win to open the foil bouts. But Katherine Couch’s epee win was the only other victory in the first round as the Cougars fell behind, 7-2.
”We knew it was an uphill battle against their foil and sabre,” Snedeker said. “Sabre and foil are the first two weapons, so they took a lead pretty early. We went to epee with one win and unfortunately our two losses in epee were in the first round. That was a little deflating, but they regrouped and came out swinging.”
Northern Highlands finished 8-1 in both sabre and foil, while the Cougars went 7-2 in epee led by a perfect day from Couch. Katie Schmidt had two wins in epee and Chloe Sofield also won two bouts in epee.
”Katherine went 3-0, which for senior year in a championship, I was happy for her,” Snedeker said. “Juliet got a win against their foil line, and they were the squad champions. And Emily Gartenberg got a win against the sabre line.”
There were plenty of wins through another standout season for the Cougars, who have kept busy again right up to the end. They will host the individual Tournament of Champions on Sunday. Couch and Zoee D’Costa will compete in the TOC. Already, the Cougars sent all three weapons to the state squad championships and won another district crown.
”I think we were where we expected to be,” Snedeker said. “I think we expected to have three squads in the states and expected to be in the finals. You never know how the tournament is going to turn out. I think we fully expected to have the successful season we had. Winning districts, getting three to squads and Katherine winning the district, it was not unexpected.”
And for the second straight year, Montgomery reached the state championship, where it ran into a Northern Highlands team that was fencing well on its way to its third state title in four years.
”There wasn’t an ‘if-only,’” Snedeker said. “Our girls brought as much as they had to bring.”