The Carleton Ravens women’s fencing team finished second in the overall team event at the 2014 Ontario University Athletics (OUA) fencing championship at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston Feb. 8-9.
Although they won the gold in the épée team event and placed third in the sabre team event, the Ravens finished with 182 points and were defeated by the Queen’s University Gaels who finished first overall with 251 points.
The women’s fencing team had won three of the four previous championships, but this year Carleton had less overall success. This was largely because the team lost a lot of last year’s fencing talent due to graduation.
The Ravens did well in the individual events, with Isabelle Gauthier securing the gold in the épée and Sharon Schuppe placing fourth in the foil. Adrienne Sukunda, daughter of head coach Eli Sukunda, won the silver medal in the sabre individual competition, losing to a fencer from the Gaels by only one touch.
Members of the team were disappointed by the overall result.
“We have a very strong club at Carleton. My father is a three-time Olympian, our other two coaches used to be on the national team, so I think they have a good idea of how to prepare for fencing competitions which could possibly be demoralizing,” Adrienne said.
Both coach Eli and Adrienne agreed that this year was not devoted to winning, but to refine the talent of the less-experienced fencers on the team, and to rebuild.
“The OUA circuit is getting pretty strong—once you get to top eight, you’ve got fencers . . . who are performing at national level tournaments and at international tournaments,” Adrienne said. “Because our coaches have such experience with that high level of fencing, they know how to prepare us, and they gave us a way to approach it positively.”
Eli said the young team performed well and the season has been a good experience.
“I think we just know that you need experience to win,” he said. “But it was good to build experience because we got far into the tournament without being eliminated, and we sort of surprised ourselves. Hopefully in the next year or two we’ll be able to build on that.”
