Inter-Prep Fencing Saturday 7th May

On Saturday we hosted a large inter-prep Fencing event with over 50 children taking part. We welcomed fencers from Great Walstead, Farlington and Pennthorpe, as well as some local fencing clubs. In total 7 matches were played with Ardingly winning 4 of them and some of the defeats were very close matches. The U12 boys’ team of Connor Cairns, Luke Bedford and Alex Fudge lost by 3 points to a more experienced Pennthorpe team. The last time they met competitively, they lost by 12 hits so there is certainly an improvement there. We had our first ever epee match for the U13 girls against Farlington. Considering they have only just started epee within the last 2 weeks, I was really impressed with how well the girls fenced and their competitive spirit. Xanthe and Rashma were then ready for more, defeating foilists from Farlington. Xanthe ended with a fantastic indicator of +18 after her foil match, one of the best indicators we have had all year. A mixed team of Catie Ireland, Sofia Harrison and Paddy Klinge did very well against Great Walstead; it is important to note that Catie and Sofia only started fencing last term and their opponents have 2 years’ experience so they did fantastically to only lost by 7 hits. Paddy captained well and finished with a +5 indicator. As usual, our U10 and U9 fencers were superb, winning all of their matches. The best victory came from the U10 girls, where Eve Gatley, Amelia Ward and Isabella Cairns-Nabi won 36-18. They all finished with positive indicators, Amelia’s being the best at +9.The U10/9 boys were victorious against Pennthorpe with Ben David-Deleplanque getting a +8 and Andrew Inglesfield +5. Overall, an excellent afternoon of fencing and great preparation for those going to the IAPS Championships over the weekend at Millfield.