FAIRFIELD, CT (December 7, 2014) -- The Vassar College women's fencing team finished its 2014 portion of the season Sunday, traveling to Sacred Heart University to take on some of the nation's best squads in the Sacred Heart University Tradition Tournament. 

The Brewers went 1-4 on the afternoon, opening the afternoon with a 17-10 win over New York University. The victory was a nice one for the Brewers, as the Violets came into the day receiving votes in the CollegeFencing360.com Top 10 poll. Vassar ended the day with four losses, but all four came against teams ranked in the Top 10. 

Vassar followed up the win over NYU with a 24-3 loss to No. 7 Harvard University, falling to No. 6 Penn State University 22-5 in the third match of the day. Vassar took on No. 2 Princeton University in the fourth set of bouts and dropped a 21-6 decision to the Tigers, and the Brewers ended the day at SHU with a 21-6 loss to No. 9 Temple University.

In the opening match of the afternoon, the Brewers used a huge 8-1 performance out of the epeè group to pull out the win. In that match, junior Rachel Messbauer (Springfield, MA/MacDuffie School) and sophomore Olivia Weiss (Pittsburgh, PA/Pennsylvania Cyber Charter) each went 3-0, while senior squash leader Megan Lewis (Charleston, SC/Governor's School) picked up two wins. Freshman Kirsten Denman (Yellow Springs, OH/Yellow Springs) and sophomore Elsa Stoff (Fair Haven, NJ/Rumson-Fair Haven) each won a pair of matches in foil, and freshman Annie Innes-Gold (Northampton, MA/Northampton) posted a 3-0 record in sabre for the Brewers. Senior captain Anastasia Stevens (Peterborough, NH/Contoocook Valley Regional) added two wins as well in sabre, as the squad picked up a 5-4 win. 

The rest of the day saw some solid individual performances against some of the best fencers in the country. Denman earned two wins against both Penn State University and Princeton at foil, while Messbauer earned two victories in epee against Temple in her final fencing competition of the season as she will head abroad in the spring semester. Innes-Gold also picked up a pair of wins against Temple, and finished with seven wins on the day. Overall, Weiss had the best day by percentage for the Brewers, as she won 70 percent (7-3) of her bouts, though Denman had the most overall bout victories for Vassar with eight Sunday.  

VC will host Detroit, Cleveland State, Yale University, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Drew University and Long Island University-Post for Senior Day on January 19 in Walker Field House in the final home event of the season for the Brewers.