The Carleton Ravens men’s fencing team were crowned Ontario University Athletics (OUA) champions Feb. 21 at Brock University.
The Ravens have won the OUA championship in back-to-back years, making this the sixth championship in the program’s history.
The Ravens took gold in the épée and foil team events and took home the bronze in the sabre event.
Carleton led the way in individual results, winning three medals, including gold from Geoffrey Devaney in the men’s foil event and silver from Alexandre Salat in men’s foil.
Joseph Wright won silver in men’s épée, and Geoffrey Devaney, who competes in men’s foil, was awarded with the Charles Walter Trophy.
Ravens head coach Eli Sukunda praised all his fencers for how they competed, but one person he gave extra congratulations to was Alecsandru Tudor.
“Alecs Tudor is a foilist, but we knew we were strong in foil, so he went over to sabre and he sort of really gave us the extreme excitement that we needed,” Sukunda said. “Even though he didn’t fence the best, he was the best spirit of the team.”
Ravens rookie sabre fencer Tristan Phillips saw his first OUA action and commented on the experience.
“It went well for a lot of different people. For me in the individual, I was off my game, which was shown in the team tournament I did significantly better in, but I was happy with my results,” he said.“I came seventeenth out of forty, and we got the bronze medal in the team event, which I was happy about since it was my first OUA tournament.”
Phillips said he was also happy for how his teammates performed in the tournament.
“All my teammates were fencing extremely well especially in foil where we took gold across the board, and épée where we had silver in individual, and gold in teams, so I’m pretty sure this is a fantastic result considering we also won OUAs last year so we’re holding our position,” he said.
The tournament was done in two days, the first day being a close race between Carleton, Queen’s University, and the University of Toronto.
“We put everything together on the second day. The first day was really close with Toronto and Queen’s very close to us, and there was no decision after the first day,” Sukunda said.
The second day saw the Ravens pull ahead with an upset victory over Queen’s.
“One of our teams upset Queen’s, and that seemed to let the floodgates open after that,” Sukunda said.
After winning the OUA championship two years in a row, Sukunda said he fears what next year might bring, but also feels hopeful.
“The three-peat, that cursed three-peat, we’re going to have returning people. It will be tough because our foil and épée team will still be a fairly strong team, but our sabre is a complete rebuilding,” he said. “It’ll be if we get them ready.”
Many Ravens fencers will be competing individually in the upcoming Canada Cup.
The nationals will be held May 15-18.
