[View Results]

Eighteen months after opening its doors, LSA crowned its inaugural champions Saturday — a result of eleven hours of fencing across two days. 

Debilitating equipment failures plagued the foil competition, reducing it to a single-strip affair. Worse, Michael Siebold — LSA's head armourer, second-strip director, and favorite to win the épeé championship — turned up gravely ill and was ultimately unable to participate in any role. Additionally, the initial uncertainty regarding his availability prompted the transposition of the épeé and sabre events. Despite these calamities, the tournament finished less than two hours beyond schedule.

Deric Tarnowski earned "E" classifications in épeé and sabre, while Lowell Stevens did the same in foil.

On Thursday, the Cadets fought a fierce round-robin pool followed by a closely-contested round of direct-eliminations.

In the semi-final round, Roger Heady — whom many have noted as LSA's most improved fencer as of late — fought Leeman Stevens to a near 0-1 standstill until less than a minute remained in the bout, when he was forced to begin taking risks, resulting in a most honorable loss.

Similarly, Seth Stevens wrestled Hampton to a 7-7 tie before being eliminated in a sudden-death encounter.

Stevens eventually emerged as Champion by edging Dakota Hampton in a 6-5 sudden-death bout.

There was no lack of drama in this competition.

Tarnowski finished the preliminary round as the clear favorite, winning all but one of his bouts, and doing so handily: Six fencers combined to score only seven touches against him, and he pitched three shutouts. Leeman Stevens, the Cadet Foil Champion and youngest fencer in the senior competition, won five of six encounters. Megan Belknap rounded out the top seeds, winning four of six, and handing Tarnowski his only defeat in preliminary competition.

The direct-elimination round was a game of rock-paper-scissors: Lowell Stevens made short work of Tarnowski, who had handled him just as easily in the first round. Leeman Stevens, the two-seed, lost a tight affair to Culver, who — amazingly — was winless in all six of her prior bouts. Belknap won her first fight, then fell to Culver, who herself succumbed to Stevens in the final. Tarnowski recovered to out-last Belknap for third.

Culver's second-place finish is notable: She began fencing only six-months ago, and spent three of the last four weeks picking up épeé and sabre (to the obvious detriment of her foil game).

The preliminaries saw Tarnowski secure another top seed, while the others were filled by fellow second-year students Logan Savage and Lowell Stevens.

Megan Belknap, who began the competition as co-favorite with Stevens, inexplicably suffered a disasterous preliminary round, failing to win a single bout. As a result, Belknap and Stevens met in the first round of the direct-elimination bouts, rather than in the final, as expected. She returned to fighting form, fencing her rival to their usual tit-for-tat stalemate until the final five touches, when Stevens caught a second wind and pushed through for the victory.

Stevens then defeated Savage handily to waltz into the championship bout.

Jason Klotz — a last minute substitute for the virus-stricken Siebold — won two of three direct-elimination bouts to steal third, despite having no sabre experience. He snuck in the deciding touch in a 15-14 win over Savage for the hardware, and lost only to Tarnowski in the semi-final.

Tarnowski got off to a great start against Stevens, floundered mid-bout, then recovered to manage a 15-9 win for the top spot.

Tarnowski turned the hat trick, clearing the third and final top-seed in the tournament. Once again, second-year students Stevens and Savage rounded out the top spots.

Culver fought valiantly with an unfamiliar weapon, but eventully lost to the épeé-minded Tarnowski, while Savage relied on his formidable foil fundamentals to dismiss Stevens and make a date with the pseudo-pretentious Polish prodigy for the phinal final. Tarnowski -- who had not lost an épeé bout the entire day -- closed the deal with a 15-11 victory.

Culver led most of the way in her bronze-medal fight with Stevens before the latter was finally able to capitalize on her fatigue to take the prize. Despite her loss, Krista's performance in this bout was easily and inarguably the most impressive of the entire tournament: Both her attacks and defense had the audience cooing and retrieving their jaws from the proverbial floor time and time again. This, after three weeks of training. A star is born.

Tarnowski edged Stevens in overall placement points (7-6) across all three weapons to take Best Blade honors.