By Bruce Gillman
Head Coach

NEW HAVEN, CT (January 23, 2008) -- Home court advantage played a great part in Vassar's loss to Yale last night.

We have fenced in some other challenging venues like NYU and the Princeton fencing room, but the Yale fencing room is the most fearsome. It reminds me of the basketball court in one of the schools portrayed early in the movie Hoosiers, complete with a similar sort of claustrophobic atmosphere and a partisan home crowd in the gallery one floor up, whose loud voiced taunts echo of the walls. It is extremely difficult for visiting teams to concentrate and the home team feeds off the energy of the crowd.

Epee was exciting, with a number of close bouts that mostly went the wrong way for Vassar. Sophomore Zach Pattison Gordon went 2-1, winning one bout on time at 3-2 and rolling for at 5-1 victory in the other. Hassan Sakhtah won a heated bout with Yale's Aaron Pearce which featured a number of nice hand touches. But that was it for Vassar epee finishing 3-6.

Sabre had an uphill battle. It sometimes seemed as if they needed to score seven touches to win a five touch bout. Freshman Andrew Fischl hung tough in all of his bouts winning 2 and losing 1 by a touch. Sophomore John Rothman overcame a slow start and won his last bout in commanding fashion. Vassar sabre also finished 3-6.

Foil had the toughest time of all. The Yale foilists were clearly on last night and pumped up by the crowd as well. Jesse Bisignano won one bout and narrowly lost another. Conor Kenney was agonizingly close in two, but foil finished a dismal 1-8.

Next year, Yale will have to come to Vassar and hopefully things will be different.

The next match for the Vassar Men's Fencing Team will be Saturday, January 26 at Boston College with BC, MIT, Brown, Brandeis, and Sacred Heart.