Well we had another great weekend with fencing. This time it was Ashley stepping up to the strip and taking first place at the Mid Atlantic RYC Y10 Women’s Saber. This is an awesome achievement for Ashley. This fencing tournament qualifies Ashley for the 2007 Fencing Nationals in Miami this year.

We went to the University of North Carolina in Greensboro for this event on Saturday March 3^rd and it was Ashley’s first tournament outside of the KOS home events. Was she nervous? She sure did not look like it!

Just to refresh your memories on how one of these tournaments works. Fencers are placed in groups called pools. Depending on the number of fencers there could be 1 or many pools. In the case of this tournament there were 3 fencers so only 1 pool was formed. The object of the pool is to get as many wins and points as possible. When the pool is complete the points are totaled up and the fencers are ranked. Based on the ranking results the fencers are paired up to compete in a direct elimination tournament. In direct elimination the winners advance to the next round and the losers go home.

Ashley ended up fencing two other fencers in this pool. She won 1 and lost 1 and the end result of the pool she ended up ranking 2^nd out of 3 fencers This created an elimination tournament where the #1 ranked fencer would get a bye for the first round and Ashley would have to fence the #3 rank in round 1 Take a look at the elimination bracket shown below to get a visual idea of what I am talking about.

In direct elimination each round consists of the best 2 out of 3 matches of 5 points each. This means the fencers fence up to 3 matches of 5 points each. The first fencer to reach 2 wins advances to the next round.

Ashley won the first two matches in round 1 against Ross with a total score of 10 to 4. This meant Ashley was moving up to the finals against Margaret. Ashley started off a little slow in the first match against Margaret and she ended up loosing the match 5 to 3. Shawn quickly came to Ashley’s side and started coaching her for the next match. Ashley started off slow again but she came from behind to win the 2^nd match 5 to 4. This was very exciting to see Ashley come from behind and win the match to tie up the series. The final 3^rd match was going to need to be played to determine the 1^st place winner. During the final Match Ashley did not start off slow at all and she took the win 5 to 1. We were so excited that Ashley displayed so much courage to come from behind in a difficult match and win 1^st place!!

In the picture below Ashley is on the right side and Margaret is on the left. As you can see in the picture both fencers are lunging for an attack but Ashley had right away in this case and she ended up with the point Ashley is showing great form in this picture with her front foot pointed forward and her left arm stretched back to give her great balance in her lunge.