Feb. 25, 2004

FAIRFIELD, CT - Sacred Heart's Fencing Teams had an active weekend with travel across four states and competition against over 18 teams. The men's and women's teams traveled to Tufts University for the New England Intercollegiate Fencing Conference and New England Intercollegiate Women's Fencing Association Championship at on February 21. The team members competed against Boston University, M.I.T., Boston College, Brandeis, UMass, and Brown, among others.

The day ended with the men's team placing 5th, the Women 8th, and a combined school rating of sixth out of 15 teams. The women's foil squad (Ferland, Humphrey, and Gray) additionally captured 1st place women's foil squad and received the honor of "best weapon squad".

Upon the completion of the team rounds, the top placing individuals competed in a championship round. Women's captain Lea Ferland finished 3rd and senior Meghan Humphrey 4th in Women's Foil. Men's captain Adam Constantine finished 5th in Men's Epee. Freshman Lucas Bernacki placed 8th in men's Foil and sophomores Alex Bente and Ken Herbert finished 8th and 9th respectively in men's Sabre.

The team arrived back at SHU early Sunday morning to catch some long awaited sleep.

Seven of the nine members of the men's team regrouped at 7:30am on Sunday to travel to Steven's Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ where Constantine led the Sacred Heart men's fencing Team to a starting win of 14 to 13 over Steven's.

The team then lost to NJIT by a score of 11 to 16. Against NJIT the men's foil squad (Egan, Bernacki, and Matts) posted 8 of a possible 9 wins. Sacred Heart then competed against Johns Hopkins and lost by a score of 6 to 21. After a long break the team finished the day with a decisive victory over the University of Maryland at College Park's fencing Team.

The men finished the season with a record of 4-4 and the women 3-6.

Many of the SHU team members have qualified for and will travel to the Northeast NCAA Regionals at Columbia University on March 7th.