(Detroit, Mich.) – Twenty-three bouts in two days is a grueling schedule for any fencer, but Emma Buckingham (Carrboro, N.C.) was up to the task, following her 12 bout wins on Friday to earn her first North American Cup gold with another 11 on Saturday to earn a second NAC title.
Buckingham, who was undefeated en route to winning the Division II women’s epee title at the NAC D on Friday in Detroit, returned to the Cobo Center on Saturday morning to claim a second gold in the Division III women’s epee.
“It feels incredible. It’s definitely an experience I haven’t had before. Especially today. I wasn’t expecting today because I was so tired from yesterday and I just wanted to be done with,” Buckingham laughed after the medal ceremony
After five wins in the pools and another four in the direct elimination table, Buckingham defeated 16-year-old Ashley Muller (Harrison, N.Y.), 15-14, to advance to the final. Fencing for gold, Buckingham and 14-year-old Rebecca Rose (Chicago, Ill.) also had a close bout, but Buckingham scored the final touch to take the win, 15-14.
“I try to clear my head. I try not to think of things unless it’s strategy and even then, I try not to think of that. I just think of little things like ‘keep calm, keep steady, keep distance,” Buckingham said.
A top-16 finisher at the 2008 NCAA Championships during her career at Haverford College, Buckingham now juggles fencing with pursuing a graduate degree in archaeology at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill.
“Fortunately UNC not only has a varsity team and a club program, but they also have a very good coach, so I’m able to go there to fence,” she said. “I really wanted to keep fencing after college and I knew it would be hard, but I really ended up in the best circumstance.”
As the second of three qualifying tournaments for the 2011 Veteran World Championships in Morocco, athletes also competed in age-group veteran divisions in the men’s epee and women’s foil.
Kazimieras Campe (Edgewater, Md.) didn’t take up fencing until his thirties when he signed up for a two-week parks and recreation program, but the sport has taken the 74-year-old around the world to earn medals at the Veteran World Championships – an event Campe won in 1998.
One of three athletes from the DC Fencer’s Club to earn medals on Saturday in the +70 veteran men’s epee division, Campe, lost to his teammate Mark Henry (Potomac, Md.) in the pools, 5-3. In the gold medal bout, however, Campe earned the win, 10-4. In the semifinals, Henry competed against their DC Fencer’s Club Teammate, Jim Adams (Rockville, Md.), where he won a closely contested bout, 9-8.
“This is one of the sports where camaraderie is at its best,” Campe said. “My colleague, Jim Adams, and I are rooming together at the hotel and yet we’re rivals on the strip and that’s the way it is. There’s usually great camaraderie among the veterans.”
The gold medal win, along with Campe’s second place finish at the NAC in Cincinnati in the fall, will earn the veteran a spot on his 10th world team where Campe said his goal is to improve on his bronze medal finish from 2010.
A Veteran World Champion in 2009, Walter Dragonetti (Elyria, Ohio) earned six pool wins and four victories in the men’s 50-59-year-old table before defeating Rick Watrall (Mahwah, N.J.), 10-8.
Ray Sexton III (Round Rock, Texas) won a silver medal in the 60-69 saber at the 2010 Veteran World Championships, but it was in the epee division that the multi-weapon athlete took gold on Saturday. The #4 seed going into the tournament, Sexton dropped one bout during the pools with a 5-2 loss to Drew Ridge (Warminster, Pa.) – a three-time Veteran World Team member who won the 40+ epee division on Friday.
Sexton and Ridge would get a rematch in the final, however, with Sexton earning the win, 10-6.
In the veteran women’s 50-59 division, Jennette Starks-Faulkner (Middletown, Conn.) and Michelle Verhave (Purdys, N.Y.) each came out of the pools undefeated with 5-0 records and entered the direct elimination table as the #1 and #2 ranked athletes, respectively. Teammates at the 2010 Veteran Worlds, both athletes were competing for berths to the 2011 Worlds where Verhave hopes to improve on her bronze medal finish from last year. In the closest bout either athlete had all day, Verhave earned the gold medal with a 6-5 victory.
Joanne Stevens (New York City, N.Y.) won each of eight pool bouts in the veteran women’s 60-69 foil division to advance to the direct elimination table where she defeated 2010 Veteran World Team member Madelon Rosenfeld (New York City, N.Y.), 10-3, to win gold.
The smallest division of the day, the veteran women’s 70+ division included just three competitors, but the trio fenced fiercely with Bettie Graham (Washington, D.C.) emerging as the winner of the pool after defeating 2010 Veteran World Team members Judith Evans (Greenwich, Conn.), 5-2, and Una Jackson (Hilton Head Island, S.C.), 5-3.
In the direct elimination table, Jackson defeated Evans, 6-5, and Graham won her bout against Jackson, 10-3, to win the division.
In a rematch of Friday’s wheelchair foil final, two-time World Champion Tariq Alqallaf (KUW)
faced two-time Paralympian Mario Rodriguez (Ventura, Calif.)
Alqallaf took an early lead, outtouching Rodriguez, 7-1, but Rodriguez slowly came back to lessen the gap to 14-12 before Alqallaf scored the final touch to win the bout, 15-12.
A week after qualifying for the NCAA Championships as the only fencer in the history of the Cal Tech program to do so, senior Laura Decker (Pasadena, Calif.) earned gold in the Division II women’s saber. A single loss in the pools meant Decker entered the direct elimination tables as a 17 seed, but she won five bouts in the tables to advance to the finals where she defeated 32-year-old Inga Cho (Northville, Mich.), 15-10.
In a field in which all of the top eight fencers were juniors, 16-year-old David Akrami (Plano, Texas) won six pool bouts and six in the direct elimination table to advance to the Division II men’s saber finals where he defeated 15-year-old Jacob Solysiak (Chicago, Ill.), 15-8.
The top eight in the Division III men’s foil also consisted entirely of up-and-coming juniors, including two 13-year-olds – Nolen Scruggs (Ozone Park, N.Y.) and Yueh-Ting Tsai (Salt Lake City, Utah) – who placed sixth and eighth, respectively. It was a pair of 15-year-olds who advanced to the finals with Jake Bassinder (Point Pleasant Beach, N.J.) defeating Yueh-Lin Tsai (Salt Lake City, Utah), 8-6.
Competition continues on Sunday with the schedule as follows:
8:30 a.m.
Wheelchair Men’s Epee
Division II Men’s Epee
Division II Women’s Foil
Veteran (+70) Women’s Saber
11 a.m.
Veteran (50-59) Women’s Saber
Veteran (60-69) Women’s Saber
Noon
Veteran (40+) Men’s Saber
1 p.m.
Veteran (40+) Women’s Epee
1:30 p.m.
Veteran (50-59) Men’s Foil
Veteran (60-69) Men’s Foil
2 p.m.
Veteran (70+) Men’s Foil
2:30 p.m.
Veteran Team Men’s Epee
Wheelchair Women’s Epee
Click here for complete results.
Top eight results for each division are as follows:
Veteran 50-59 Men’s Epee
1. Walter Dragonetti (Elyria, Ohio)
2. Rick Watrall (Mahwah, N.J.)
3. Charles Schneider (Novi, Mich.)
3. Alexander Shalaurov (Cary, N.C.)
5. William Gelnaw (Fullerton, Calif.)
6. Evan Ranes (Henderson, Nev.)
7. Joseph Znoy (Sterling Heights, Mich.)
8. James Neale (Yorktown Heights, N.Y.)
Veteran 60-69 Men’s Epee
1. Ray Sexton III (Round Rock, Texas)
2. Drew Ridge (Warminster, Pa.)
3. Jere Bothelio (San Jose, Calif.)
3. James Flint (New Hope, Pa.)
5. Robert Cochrane, Jr. (Lake Worth, Fla.)
6. Brian Harper (Gainesville, Fla.)
7. Jonathan Jefferies (Alameda, Calif.)
8. Solomon Weingarten (Oakland, Calif.)
Veteran 70+ Men’s Epee
1. Kazimieras Campe (Edgewater, Md.)
2. Mark Henry (Potomac, Md.)
3. James Adams (Rockville, Md.)
3. Richard Dunlop (Palatine, Ill.)
5. John Terninko (Nottingham, N.H.)
6. Donald Penner (Vaughn, Wash.)
7. Marcel Miernik (Irvington, N.Y.)
8. Alexander Kocsy (Wayne, Pa.)
Veteran 50-59 Women’s Foil
1. Michelle Verhave (Purdys, N.Y.)
2. Jennette Starks-Faulkner (Middletown, Conn.)
3. Ursula Szpak (Trophy Club, Texas)
3. Anne-Marie Walters (Parkland, Fla.)
5. Elizabeth Merritt (Washington, D.C.)
6. Suzanne Marx (Portland, Ore.)
7. Judith Offerle (Winnetka, Ill.)
8. Theodora Mauro (San Francisco, Calif.)
Veteran Women’s 60-69 Foil
1. Joanne Stevens (New York City, N.Y.)
2. Madelon Rosenfeld (New York City, N.Y.)
3. Pamela Katz (Buckeye, Ariz.)
3. Patricia Bedrosian (Malibu, Calif.)
5. Patricia Lutton (Cupertino, Calif.)
6. Muriel Cawthorn (Rehoboth, R.I.)
7. Ruth Dodge (Casa Grande, Ariz.)
8. Ellen O’Leary (Decatur, Ga.)
Veteran Women’s 70+ Foil
1. Bettie Graham (Washington, D.C.)
2. Judith Evans (Greenwich, Conn.)
3. Una Jackson (Hilton Head Island, S.C.)
Division III Women’s Epee
1. Emma Buckingham (Carrboro, N.C.)
2. Rebecca Rose (Chicago, Ill.)
3. Ashley Muller (Harrison, N.Y.)
3. Charlotte Green (Chicago, Ill.)
5. Weiyue Lu (Ellicott City, Md.)
6. Anna Gooch (Sierra Madre, Calif.)
7. Laura-Lee Spaetzel (CAN)
8. Carrie Warlaumont (Portland, Ore.)
Division III Men’s Foil
1. Jake Bassinder (Point Pleasant Beach, N.J.)
2. Yueh-Lin Tsai (Salt Lake City, Utah)
3. Antoine Simonnet (FRA)
3. Samuel Goodman (Pittsford, N.Y.)
5. Deven Desai (Westborough, Mass.)
6. Nolen Scruggs (Ozone Park, N.Y.)
7. Jose Tripari (PUR)
8. Yueh-Ting Tsai (Salt Lake City, Utah)
Wheelchair Men’s Saber
1. Tariq Alqallaf (KUW)
2. Mario Rodriguez (Ventura, Calif.)
3. Joseph Brinson (Brandon, Miss.)
3. Dennis Aspy (Woodstock, Ga.)
5. Rory Pannkuk (Santa Barbara, Calif.)
Division II Men’s Saber
1. David Akrami (Plano, Texas)
2. Jacob Soltysiak (Chicago, Ill.)
3. David Cichocki (Chicago, Ill.)
3. Jason Reitman (Westfield, N.J.)
5. Devin Zayas (Elmendorf AFB, Alaska)
6. Logan Spear (West Linn, Ore.)
7. Ameen Borojerdi (Plantation, Fla.)
8. Eamonn Kelly (Mooresville, N.C.)
Division II Women’s Saber
1. Laura Decker (Pasadena, Calif.)
2. Inga Cho (Northville, Mich.)
3. Nehal Hassan (St. Louis, Mo.)
3. Sarah Dzielski (Rochester, N.Y.)
5. Petra Khan (Beaverton, Ore.)
6. Noa Allen (Atlanta, Ga.)
7. Mira Armstrong (Bronx, N.Y.)
8. Victoria Harris (Glenview, Ill.)
Veteran Men’s Foil Team
1. Brooklyn
2. ACN Lotus
3. Jym
4. Stayin’ Alive
5. Dale Dennis x2
6. St. Louis Fencers
7. DNR
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