Mertens Fencers...

Another great day for Ardingly's fencers!  Last week, our fencers did the business and convincingly beat Eastbourne College, a club with generally less experienced fencers than ourselves.  But this week, our fencers took on the mighty Charterhouse, a bastion of fencing and a regular on the top fencing circuit.  Now, they had problems all week sorting out what players and teams they would send but in any case their reduced teams arrived and they contained 2 very good occasional internationals and others.

Results against Charterhouse - 3 wins out of 4 matches :):):)

 Senior Foil (Josh Hardy, Toby Brann & Sam Sheridan) lost 34:45 Junior Foil 'A' (Harry Ward, Alec Watson & Matt Geddes) won 45:20 Junior Foil 'B' (Lucas Williamson, Cameron Elder & Christopher Jung) won 45:31 Epee (Bryan Chiu, Ollie Clarke-McCullagh & Colin Cook) won 45:37

 The senior foil team ably led as always by Josh Hardy was supplemented this week by Sam Sheridan again and by Toby Brann for his first outing for the seniors.  The team remained close to their opponents' score till the very end.  Toby Brann tried hard thoughout and Sam Sheridan fenced especially well (-3) but it was Josh Hardy (+5) who once again took the plaudits.  He fenced calmly, with precision and excellent technique but sadly the team were never quite able to haul back the points.  Still they did succeed in unnerving their much more experienced opponents.

 In the first of the Junior matches, the 'B' team well led by the very experienced Lucas Williamson, featured Christopher Jung in his first outing for Ardingly.  He fenced really well ending on (+6)  Cameron Elder showed tremendous promise although was a little unlucky (blame the ref, i.e. me) on -2.  But Lucas was ever reliable and devastating, ending his 3 bouts on +10.  In the second of the junior matches, the battle-hardened veterans of the 'A's were very well led by Harry Ward (+7) and excellently supported by Alec Watson (+9) and Matt Geddes (+9).  This was a one-sided contest with our fencers in control of the match from the very beginning through to the very end.  But it did provide them with much-needed match practice.

 But the real drama and greatest test (and pleasure) was still to come.....the epee match.  Our eclectic epeeists, took on Charterhouse's and this was a revenge match since we lost by one point to them last year.  Only Ollie Clarke-McCullagh (+7) remained from that team and he had a point to prove.  While Ardingly took the lead and soon extended it to 20:10, a strong fight back meant that just over half-way through we led 28:25.  But a cool Colin Cook (-1) won the 7th round (6:1) and this was followed by Oli picking his opponents off to win the 8th round (5:2)  Captain Bryan Chiu (+5) demonstrated excellent composure and technique  (as he had done so all day) to bring home the bacon and secure our 3rd win of the day.  Not even the excellent match tea could exceed the pleasure of our epeeists victory today.

And so on to next week, the Inter-Prep School competition round 2.  Our ACPS will be welcoming Brambletye for the first time as well as fencers from other schools including Pennthorpe, Farlington and possibly Cumnor House.  Lots of help from seniors will be needed to help the younger ones get kitted out, marshal them on and off the piste as well as referee the matches.  So please do come along to support, check out the quality of the match tea (yes, it really is very good) and enjoy some really good fencing.