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Title
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510 Fencers Enter First 16 Meets
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Date
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December 1941
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volume
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6
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issue
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5
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pages
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8, 10
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content
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en
510 FENCERS ENTER FIRST 16 MEETS
Men’s Foil
Hammond Prep Foil—The first competition of the 1941–42 season, the men’s prep foil for the Dr. Graeme Hammond prizes, was won by Sydney Tall of the Long Island division, representing Long Island University, over a field of 15. The meet was held at the New York Athletic Club on October 14. Second place went to Nick Terracuso of the Greco Fencing Academy, and third to Arnold Kreiss of St. John’s University. Tall was undefeated on the final strip.
Hammond Novice Foil—A field of 33 faced the issue in the Hammond novice foil at the N. Y. A. C. on October 21, and nine survived to fence off the final strip on October 23. The winner was Eliot Slone of the Foils Club, who captured six of his seven final bouts, with one unfenced. Evan Quinn of the Salle Santelli took second place over Andre Deladrier of St. John’s on a count of touches.
Hammond Junior Foil—A five-way tie that took an extra evening of fencing to resolve featured the Hammond junior foil—limited to junior ranking fencers—which was scheduled to be held at the N. Y. A. C. on November 4 but actually ended a week later. The tie was among Arthur Tauber of New York University, Harry Boutsikaris of Seton Hall, Ted Green of the Saltus Club, Charles Steinhardt of the Fencers Club, and Archie Ignatow of the Salle Santelli. Boutsikaris, with a 4–0 lead over Steinhardt in his last bout of the final, had the title in his grasp but dropped the decision 5–4, tying up all five fencers. Tauber justified his No. 10 national ranking by sweeping through the fence-off without defeat, followed by Boutsikaris and Green.
Novice Foil Team, Every Trophy—An immense field of 22 teams jammed the Salle Santelli on November 9 for the honor of winning the first leg on the Dernell Every trophy for novice foil teams. Direct elimination left three teams surviving for a final round robin—the Santelli “A” squad of Evan Quinn, Douglas Gerard and Peter Tishman, the Saltus trio of Wilfrid Ritayik, Marcel Bramerel and Steve Stevens, and a Vince composite team of Neil Lazar, Robert Guillard and Herbert Spector. The Santelli group won the trophy with 5–4 victories over both their opponents. Evan Quinn provided the margin of safety for the winners, dropping only one bout in the long competition and, with the bout score tied at 4–4, coming through with 5–0 victories over both his Saltus and Vince opponents to give the Santelli team the trophy.
A. F. L. A. Senior Foil—Six senior and ranking foilsmen got the early-season kinks out of their muscles in time to contest for A. F. L. A. medals in the senior foil competition at the Salle d’Armes Vince on November 18. Warren Dow of the New York Athletic Club, fencing with his customary precision, went through the meet undefeated to take first honors. Second was Jose R. de Capriles of the Salle Santelli and third, Kurt Ettinger of the same club.
A. F. L. A. Prep Foil—Vincent Puente of Columbia swept all five of his final-round bouts and won the A. F. L. A. prep foils competition on November 24 at the Saltus Club. Nick Terracuso of the Greco Fencing Academy was second and Robert Jerome of Seton Hall third in the field of 24.
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Epee
Cherny Novice Epee—Moving through a big field of 32 with but two defeats, Ralph Liederman of the Greco Fencing Academy won his junior spurs by taking the Cherny novice epee competition on November 2 at the Salle Santelli. Paul Costigan of St. John’s University and Evan Quinn of the Salle Santelli captured the silver and bronze medals, respectively. The other six contestants in the nine-man final were closely bunched behind the winners, all taking at least one bout.
Novice Epee Team, J. de Capriles Trophy—A C. C. N. Y. composite team of James Strauch, Gerald Widoff and Hugh Salzberg survived a direct-elimination competition to win the first leg on the Jose R. de Capriles trophy for novice epee teams at the Salle Santelli on November 15. Despite the fact that they faced stiff competition all the way through the seven-team competition, the City College epeeists downed N. Y. U. 5-2, Columbia 5-2 and the Salle Santelli “A” squad 5-2. The Santelli team of Evan Quinn, Archie Ignatow and Jack Gorlin, and the Columbia trio of Peter Conomikes, Andy Pickens and Louis Turner did not fence off for the runner-up spot.
M. de Capriles Junior Epee—In a competition where upsets were the rule rather than the exception, Wallace H. Goldsmith, Jr., of the New York Athletic Club, justified his No. 10 national ranking and won the gold medal in the Miguel A. de Capriles junior epee competition at the Salle Santelli on November 22. Second was Sanford Rogers, Fencers Club, and third Norman Turley of the Salle Santelli. Fenced for one touch, the meet saw many of the favorites in the 38-man field eliminated in the preliminaries or semi-finals, and every contestant in the 12-man finals had at least three defeats charged against him.
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Sabre
Hammond Novice Sabre—A near-record field of 29 entered the Hammond novice sabre competition at the N. Y. A. C. on October 21, many probably being influenced by the fact that the first prize was an actual sabre, something to fight for these days. After an extremely close evening of competition, the coveted prize was won by Sol Gorlin of New York University, who breezed through the six-man final without defeat. In second place was Andre Deladrier of St. John’s University, with Joseph Goldzieher of the Salle Santelli in third spot. Gorlin was in top form, dropping only one bout of the 16 he fenced.
A. F. L. A. Novice Sabre—An even more impressive entry of 32 fought for the medals in the A. F. L. A. novice sabre at the Greco Fencing Academy on November 12. The fact that it was possible to run only two strips at a time caused the finals to be postponed to November 18, when Joseph Goldzieher of the Salle Santelli defeated Ralph Liederman of Greco, 5-4, in a fence-off to determine first place after each had gone through the eight-man final with five victories. Herbert Hor of Columbia took third place on touches after he had finished in a three-way deadlock with Andre Deladrier of St. John’s and Al Sully of Seton Hall College.
Muray Junior Sabre—Harold Newton of the Greco Fencing Academy won the Nickolas Muray junior sabre competition over a field of 30 at the Salle Santelli on November 23. Newton defeated Leo Kellerman, unattached, in a fence-off after each had finished the final round with a record of five victories and two defeats. Andre Deladrier of St. John’s captured third place on touches over Neil Lazar of the Salle Santelli and Bill Meyer of the Salle Santelli, receiving 20 touches to Lazar’s 24 and Meyer’s 27.
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Women’s Foil
Van Buskirk Prep, Women’s Foil—Forging through fourteen bouts without defeat, Maria Kosich of the Salle Cherny spread-eagled a field of 24 to win the first women’s competition of the Metropolitan season, the Van Buskirk prep, contested at the Fencers Club on October 17. Second and third places went to Katherine Charpentier of the Salle Santelli and Irene Nyski of Cooper Union, respectively.
Manrique Novice Women’s Foil—Dominating the competition with but 30 touches scored against her in 17 bouts, Aida Condosta of the Salle Santelli won the Manrique novice foil from a crowd of 35 contestants on her home strips October 26. With only one loss in the finals, Henrietta Brackley of the Long Island division was the runner-up, with Margaret Mackey of the Salle Cherny, third.
A. F. L. A. Prep, Women’s Foil—Dorothy Piccininni of Hunter College fenced her way through a nine-girl final without defeat to win the A. F. L. A. gold medal in the second women’s prep competition of the season at the Fencers Club on Nov. 7. Second place went to Mildred Mackey of New Jersey Teachers’ College, while Mrs. Helen Watson of the Salle Santelli nosed out her daughter, Gloria Watson, for third place. Twenty-five fencers took part in the competition.
A. F. L. A. Novice, Women’s Foil—It took seven hours to find a winner among the 62 entries in the second women’s novice foil of the season, held at the Salle Santelli on November 16, but when the final results were tabulated, form followed perfectly. Henrietta Brackley of the Long Island division, representing Hofstra College, and Margaret Mackey of the Salle Cherny, who had finished second and third in the season’s initial novice tournament, won the gold and silver medals respectively. Rosalind Blumberg of the Foils Club finished third in the nine-girl finals, after a count of touches with Augusta Strongman of the Staten Island Sword Club, Rhoda Kunstler of Brooklyn College, Patricia Costello of New York University and Maria Kosich of the Salle Cherny.
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The entry lists for the first 16 competitions of the season—six in men’s foil, three in epee, three in sabre and four in women’s foil—totaled 510 competitors. These were classified as follows: 164 in men’s foil, 104 in epee, 93 in sabre and 149 in women’s foil. The largest single number of competitors appeared for the men’s novice foil team competition, when 66 fencers competed.
