Results: vs. UNC | vs. Haverford | vs. Sacred Heart | vs. NJIT

PHILADELPHIA (Jan. 24, 2015) – The Drew University women's fencing team began its team competition season today at the Philadelphia Invitational, and lost a pair of painstakingly close duels while also fighting hard against NCAA Division I programs at the University of Pennsylvania.
 
The short story is that the Rangers went 0-4 at the Saturday invitational, but two of those losses included a 15-13 setback to Haverford College and dropping a 15-12 decision to the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Division I powerhouses The University of North Carolina and Sacred Heart University each picked up 24-3 victories over Drew.
 
The longer version of Saturday's competition tells a tale of the Rangers' progress throughout a day of tough competition in their first event as a team this winter.
 
"The women really showed a lot of moxie," said head coach Vincent Paragano after his first Drew fencing event at the helm of the program. "For four of our starters, this was their invitation to NCAA level competition.  They matured on the strip in a very short amount of time. I've told the girls that the goal this season is to build a cohesive, tight-knit unit that will be ready to win in the near future and that we can be proud of for years to come. They certainly took that to heart and this was day one of the new era."
 
In the Haverford duel, the foil team of sophomore Ivy Wong, Kelsey Oeler and Angela Pol picked up 5-4 victory with three triumphs by Wong and one each by Oeler and Pol. Wong picked up the decisive win by scoring five touches to four in the final foil bout to give Drew a 5-4 lead in the duel.
 
Freshmen Amelia Breckenridge, Lauren Gonnelli and Anna Scheckel each picked up a win in the epee event, but Drew fell 6-3 and Haverford took a 10-8 overall lead. Despite having just two competitors in the saber, junior Sarah Silvestri and freshman Natalia Dashnaw fell barely (5-4) to Haverford as Silvestri picked up 5-4 and 5-3 wins in touches scored and Dashnaw got her Drew career started with two 5-0 wins.
 
"Special kudos go out to Amelia Breckenridge and Natalia Dashaw," Paragano said. "Amelia is brand new to fencing and today she picked up two victories, one in epee and one in saber; pretty amazing for your rirst competition ever and getting wins in different weapons. Natalia returned to fencing after a two-year lay off due to an injury and was on fire all day and had her game together. This bodes very well for us."


Against NJIT in Round 6 of the Philadelphia Invitational, the Highlanders stormed out to a 13-5 lead after 6-3 and 7-2 wins in foil and epee, respectively. The Rangers fought back valiantly in saber as Dashnaw, Breckenridge and Silvestri put together a 7-2 win. Dashnaw picked up three wins by herself with touches scored victories of 5-2, 5-2 and 5-0. Silvestri did the same with touch advantages of 5-0, 5-0 and 5-4. Breckenridge scored a 5-2 win in the third go through the saber round robin.
 
The Rangers will return to the strips on Saturday, Jan. 31 for a home tri meet against Vassar College and Yale University in the Simon Forum, beginning at 9:00 a.m.