After many tournaments, bouts, and medals, the Morgan fencing team’s 2024-2025 season, full of wins, losses, hard work, and triumph, came to an end on March 8 at team states in the Morgan gym.

The season started with an invitational hosted at the Morgan school on January 4, 2025. The tournament collected donations, toys, for the Yale New Haven Hospital pediatric ward. Guilford, Simsbury, North Haven, and Hand all attended this tournament. The team was able to collect many donations for the hospital, toys and toiletries, and raised thousands of dollars from concessions and raffles that will go to support the team.

Seven days later, New Haven high school hosted the annual JV tournament. Morgan ended the day with eight fencers placing in the top eight. With ups and downs throughout the tournament, Sophomore sabre fencer Molly O’Donnell shared that “it was my favorite part of the season, and I had so much fun!” O’Donnell placed 2nd overall for sabre, with a final bout that she lost.

Men’s foil: Mekai Howard 3rd place
Men’s sabre: Joey Morrissey 2nd, Jude Watson 5th place
Women’s foil: Taylor Breen 6th place
Women’s sabre: Molly O’Donnell 2nd, Seren Howard 3rd place
Women’s épée: Saoirse O’Beirn 2nd, Annabelle Parent 6th place

Sophomore foil fencer, Hope Savage, who participated in the JV tournament, says she had a great season, with six varsity bouts as a sophomore and four varsity wins, and is looking forward to next year.

Next, Guilford high school hosted the Novice tournament on February 2, 2025. The Morgan team had 15 participants, and nine came out in

the top eight for their weapon, the only placings announced for fencing at tournaments. 15 mentor teammates came that day to support, one for each novice fencer. During the match, mentors helped coach when head coaches were busy working with other athletes. Sophomore épée fencer Libby Burns, who was a mentor at the tournament for Kim Tovar, felt that the tournament was her favorite part of the season and “loved watching all the novices learn in their first tournament. I enjoyed helping them through the day and giving them advice.”

Men’s sabre: Logan Hoek 3rd, Josh Nager 7th place
Men’s foil: Peter Fortin-Roth 5th place
Women’s sabre: Lexi Newman 3rd, Paige Abbott 3rd place
Women’s foil: Kate Abbott 3rd, Bridget Johnson 8th place
Women’s épée: Kim Tovar 5th, Sophia Rae 8th place

As the team neared conference and states, a few of the fencers got injured and freshman and sophomore fencers had to step in. Captain Riley Brauchler, women’s sabre fencer, badly sprained her ankle and couldn’t participate in the conference championship. Furthermore, junior men’s épée fencer Anthony Strunjo injured his knee during a match and was also out for the rest of the season. Because of Anthony’s injury, freshman Teddy Keating had to step up and fence in states for men’s épée.

This season, the captains, picked by the head and foil coach, Jim Barnett, were Riley Brauchler, Meredith O’Brien, Joey O’Brien, and Henry Tessman. Not only were there new captains but also new coaches, this year, the team had a new assistant and épée coach, Andrew Daly, and the returning assistant and sabre coach, Alex Rauccio.

Morgan fenced the Hopkins School at Hopkins on Tuesday, February 4. All squads, women’s épée women’s saber, men’s saber, men’s épée, and men’s foil, but women’s foil lost to Hopkins, as it was a very tough match.

Through all the concerns and stress, the team pulled themselves together. Junior foil fencer Ava Nettleton said, “the team always tends to peak at the right time. There were some bumps in the road, especially with multiple injuries on the team, but in the end everyone pulled through and gave it their all. Despite some rough matches, we always came back better and learned from it.”

Later in the season, the team had conference championships, which is a team event for the SCC conference. This event took place on February 22 at North Branford high school. The team ended the day with very high placing results; the men’s team were all around conference champions and men’s foil, épée, and women’s sabre all earned second. Last season the women’s team were all-around conference champions, women’s sabre placed first, women’s épée placed second, and women’s foil placed third.

“I love the support the team constantly brings, and my favorite memories were when the team would play a fun team building game called the glove game,” said Savage.

Throughout the season, the team does lots of team bonding, including playing games at practice, to keep the team close and working well together through the stressful weeks leading up to states. Leadership from the captains also helped to keep the team running well as they supported the team during matches and practices, being there for each player.

Nettleton’s favorite moment from this season was “when we had a short practice and played volleyball. Everyone loves it, and it was a nice end to an intense week. Everyone did really well at the match the day after, too.” She said it was another great season and looks forward to her final season next year as a senior.

At the second to last event in the season, the individual states, three varsity fencers from each squad were sent. Individual states is a major event with 55 competitors for men’s foil, 64 for men’s épée, 35 for men’s saber, 37 for women’s saber, 57 for women’s foil, and 58 for women’s épée. This is also a crucial event for qualifying for team states because teams have to have enough fencers placed high enough in the rankings to qualify.

In men’s foil, Henry Tessman placed third, and Nicole Zi Yue Zhou placed fourth in women’s épée. Both Tessman and Zhou earned first team all state. This year, team states were hosted by the Morgan School on March 8. Morgan was one of two teams, Morgan and Hopkins, to qualify all six squads, men’s foil, men’s saber, men’s épée, women’s foil, women’s saber, and women’s épée, for this event – a very hard accomplishment, but our second year in a row doing it.

Although Morgan didn’t place first, the team finished second for men’s and third for women’s, the second year in a row Morgan has done this.

Senior foil captain Meredith O’Brien had an amazing winning bout against Fairfield, a three seeded team, and Morgan was a six seed at team states. Winning the tiebreaker bout against Fairfield left a lasting impression on O’Brien that reflected on the team effort shared that day. The bout was against the number 4 ranked women’s foil fencer in the state and was back and forth the entire time. With a very close bout Meredith came out with a 5-4 win. Even though she is no longer a part of the team, it will forever have an impact on her life, and she wished she spent more time appreciating how special and connected the team was.

The team will lose ten seniors, Nicole Zi Yue Zhou, Riley Brauchler, Demani Howard, Henry Tessman, Joey O’Brien, Patrick O’Donnell, Drew Auletta, Aden Gadun, Meredith O’Brien, and Francesca Limauro. Savage feels that the season flew by and that the seniors will be missed. The team doesn’t know yet who will be the captains next year.