Blue Fencing Defeats Division I No. 10 Northwestern at Tufts Invitational

MEDFORD, Mass. – Wellesley College fencing earned a victory over Division I No. 10 Northwestern with wins from the foil and epee squads at the Tufts Invitational on Sunday at Gantcher Family Sports and Convocation Center.

In addition to earning a ranked Division I win, the Blue narrowly fell 14-13 to Division III No. 5 Tufts. The epee squad picked up a 6-3 win over the Jumbos. Epee's two-win day was led by seven victories from sophomore Grace Xu (Toronto, Ontario) and five from first year Alisha Li (Warren, N.J.). 

Foil grabbed a 5-4 win over Northwestern that proved critical. First year Lauren Khoo (San Francisco, Calif.) won seven bouts for foil and classmate first year Phoebe Li (Palo Alto, Calif.) earned five. Sophomore Sharon Huang (Toronto, Ontario) recorded six wins for sabre.

Tufts 14, Wellesley 13

Xu, Khoo, and Huang all went 3-0 in their respective weapons for Wellesley against Tufts. A. Li added a pair of epee wins and sophomore Michelle Pan (Arlington, Mass.) had one victory to give epee a 6-3 squad win. P. Li took a point for foil.

Wellesley 14, Northwestern 13

Khoo made it 6-0 to start the day with three more victories. A. Li also had a perfect 3-0 performance. Xu and Pan both went 2-1 in epee and P. Li snagged two victories in foil. Huang and first year Rebecca Hsieh (Annandale, Va.) each had a win in sabre.

Cornell 19, Wellesley 8

P. Li, Xu and Huang all had two wins for the Blue against Cornell. Khoo and junior Mia Chao (Washington, D.C.) rounded out the scorers for Wellesley with one victory each.

Next up, the Blue take part in the Eric Sollee Invitational at Brandeis University on Saturday, January 27. Action is set to begin at 8:00 AM.