CHESTNUT HILL MA (January 23, 2010) – Competing in a six-team North East Fencing Meet at Boston College on Saturday, the Vassar College women's team split its six matches and earned a victory over host Boston College for the first time in five years.

Now 9-13 on the season, the Brewers will next be in action on February 3 in New York City against both New York University and Columbia at 4:00 p.m.

In a meet of this magnitude, several fencers – ranging from freshman newcomers to veteran seniors – had outstanding performances. Junior Sophie Courser led the way with a 13-4 record in the epee. Freshman Caitlin Clevenger compiled a 10-7 mark in the epee competition to bolster Courser's efforts. In the sabre, junior Julie Carlsen went a solid 13-5 and the foil was a strong area for the Brewers with junior Jackie Kory compiling a 15-3 record and freshman Kaite LeClair# earning a 13-4 mark.

Round 1 – Vassar 23 – Smith College 4
The Brewers faced a Seven Sisters rival in Smith to open competition and according to head coach Bruce Gillman was a nice preparation for a long day of competition. Smith's sabre fencers competed admirably against the Brewers – a 5-4 VC win -- but in the end Vassar won comfortably with foil and epee both winning 9-0.

Round 2 – Vassar 10 – Brown 17
A strong Brown team that is particularly deep in sabre, earned a 17-10 win. Carlsen, LeClair and Courser each won two bouts, but the Brewers had squad losses in the sabre and foil at 3-6 and in the epee at 4-5.

Round 3 – Vassar 21 – Tufts 6
As a program, Tufts is going through a rebuilding year and the Brewers took full advantage, winning sweeps in the foil and earning solid 6-3 wins in the epee and sabre.

Round 4 – Vassar 14 – Boston College 13
The highlight of the meet was the first team victory over Boston College in five seasons. The foil squad led the way with a 6-3 victory over a traditional strong area of the Eagles team. Kory went 3-0 in this round with Katie LeClair compiling a 2-1 mark and senior squad leader Melissa Lee adding as important victory as well. Courser and Clevenger notched two epee victories each and sophomore Veronica Weser secured a 5-4 epee squad victory with a win of her own. The last piece to the victory was Carlsen going 3-0 in sabre against a tough BC squad.

Round 5 – Vassar 12 – MIT 15
Momentum from the Boston College victory carried into the MIT match where the Brewers came close to snapping a multi-year losing drought against the Engineers. The Brewers were precariously close, boasting 5-4 squad wins in both foil and epee with Kory again 3-0. Courser, Clevenger, and LeClair all compiled 2-1 records. The match was settled in the sabre competition, where MIT won 7-2.

Round 6 – Vassar 11 – Brandeis 16
The Brewers crept a little closer to defeating Brandeis this year with an unprecedented 5-4 foil squad victory with Kory again going 3-0. Epee fell just short at 4-5 and sabre had trouble with a more experienced Brandeis squad with Carlsen accounting for its only two victories in the round.