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February 17, 2006
Freshman Alex Heiss and sophomore Erica Waichman are heading to Hartford, Conn. this weekend to compete in the Junior Olympic National Championships. Over 1,600 fencers will compete in the tournament this weekend. The tournament has a junior (under-20) and a cadet (under-17) division, with Heiss and Waichman slated to compete in the junior field. Competitors qualify for the event by earning national fencing points, or by placing in local qualifying tournaments.
Since this is an individual event, Heiss and Waichman will be fencing for themselves for the first time this season, as opposed to competing for Cornell. Due to the nature of the competition, the quality of fencers should be more advanced. However, the preparation remains the same for the two Cornellians.
“We have been practicing as usual. We had some Ivy League matches, and there were really good fencers there. That should give us some practice heading into this event,” Heiss said. “I think I have improved a bit since my last national competition, and I’ll get to see how much.”
“It is a lot different, because it is individual, but in the end, I am still representing Cornell, which makes you feel good,” Waichman said.
Waichman, who will be comWaichman, who will be competing in the epee, and Heiss, who will be competing in the sabre, have both fenced in this tournament before. Waichman, who missed last year’s championships due to illness, finished 18th two years ago, and hopes to improve on her performance.
“I just want to fence as well as I can, and hopefully win more bouts than last time,” she said. “I have been taking a lot of one on one lessons with [Cornell head] coach [Iryna Dolgikh], and been doing a lot of bouting during practice. You need to be physically strong and able to go the distance for the entire day.”
This year, the duo qualified based on national points. The tournament will not only have the traditional college-length matches, but will also include longer, 15-point matches.
“I am more used to this format, as opposed to the college format,” Heiss said. “The longer bouts will be an adjustment, but I like them more, as they give you a chance to feel out your opponent.”
Both Heiss and Waichman turned in strong performances last week in the inaugural Ivy League Championships, and will look to keep that momentum going. Heiss recorded two victories in a 19-8 loss to Yale in the Ivy League championships, while Waichman won all three of her matches against Penn in Cornell’s 21-8 loss to the Quakers.
“I just want to fence as much as I can, and finish at least in the top-32, to get national points,” Heiss said.
Archived article by Jeremy DruckerSun Staff Writer
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February 17, 2006
Looking to build momentum before the Ivy Classic in Providence, R.I., next weekend, the gymnastics team will face off against Towson, Temple, George Washington, and Ursinus in a five-team competition this weekend.
“I think they know that we can improve on what we did last week, and I think they are ready to do that,” said head coach Paul Beckwith. “It would be great to do it on the road again as a tune up for the Ivies.”
The Red finished second at its own Big Red Invitational last weekend, giving the team confidence going into the weekend.
“We threw a bunch of new skills last weekend, and I think we are going to do them again this weekend [and] hopefully improve them, again getting ready for our Ivy meet, which is our big event coming up,” Beckwith said. “I think the last couple of weeks have been really good – the team’s attitude has been really good. Basically, we are on a roll right now.”
The first-place finisher last weekend was Towson, a team that the Red will face again this weekend.
“We had Towson here last weekend, and it was really close,” Beckwith said. “We had some mistakes on vaulting, and we actually could have won the meet, which is really exciting because they are a really powerful and well funded Division I program.”
Besides Towson, the Red has already competed against two other schools that it will face this coming weekend, George Washington and Temple. Overall, the team has had mixed results against these teams, falling to both Towson and George Washington while defeating Temple.
Last weekend, Ursinus fell to SUNY Brockport in a dual meet.
“Our goal always remains the same and that is to up our team score,” Beckwith said. “Right now, if you looked at high team scores, we have the second highest in the Ivy League this year. I would like to go into our Ivy meet the following weekend with the highest team score, which would give us a whole lot of confidence.”
The team currently has a high team score of 188.175, which they established at last weekend’s invitational. Cornell boasted especially strong performances from sophomore Megan Gilbert with an all-around score 38.100, junior Randi Bisbano with an all-around score of 37.45, sophomore Leslie Gregory with an all-around score of 37.2 and freshman Jennifer Yee with a score of 9.775 on bars. Gilbert’s all-around score was the fifth-highest in school history.
“If we make a mistake, we need to be able to pick it up and keep right on going and that’s what we did last week,” Beckwith said. “It started out rough on vault, which is our first event, with one of the lowest vaulting scores of the year, and we picked it right back up and had the best day of the year on the other three events.”
The Red will look to improve on its performances last weekend and build up its momentum going into the Ivy League Classic.
“We had some problems in the beginning of the year with consistency, and there are still a couple of flaws, but basically everyone has come together,” Beckwith said. “We have started to feel really powerful when we get out on the floor and that’s what it takes. We want to feel like we are unstoppable.”
Archived article by Catherine BourqueSun Staff Writer