Chapel Hill High School’s women’s fencing team brought home the first-place trophy from the state championship team meet held at Chapel Hill High on January 27.
The meet was a single-elimination tournament with three rounds. The final round was an “encounter,” in which fencers from opposing teams fence each other in a random order.
One-on-one matches are called bouts and continue until the first competitor reaches five points. Points can be earned by striking the opponent’s torso, neck, groin or back with the tip of the weapon, or better known as the foil. Whoever wins five bouts first wins the encounter.
The winning team consisted of seniors and co-captains Laura Cheney and Zoe Miller, junior Erin Timmins and sophomores Alessandra Gutierrez-Arnold and Jasmine Ji.
As captains, Cheney and Miller were responsible for teaching new members of the team the basics of fencing and expressed pride with the team’s improvement throughout the season. “It feels like just last week they were all putting their jackets on backwards and dropping their foils,” Miller said.
The core members of the group have been building the women’s team for the past few years, hoping to finally make it to the top of the ranks this year. “Everyone put their all into those bouts, and it paid off when we won. Obviously, I was thrilled, but I was also just incredibly proud of my team,” Miller said.
“Winning the championship was such a surreal moment for me. I was struck by how talented and dedicated everybody on the fencing team was, and I am really excited to hear what they accomplish in future seasons,” Cheney said of the victory.
During the season, Chapel Hill only competes in meets against other teams in the coastal Carolina region. The state tournament is the only time where all the teams from the state fence each other.
The individual state championships were held on February 24 on UNC campus. Five of Chapel Hill’s female fencers made it into the top 12: with Ji placing 4th, Miller placing 5th, Cheney placing 6th, Gutierrez-Arnold placing 7th and Timmins placing 10th.
