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Photos: Jack Bradshaw
York’s men’s 1sts fencing team put Roses counterpart Lancaster to the sword on Wednesday afternoon, taking a 124-106 victory thanks to a strong performance in the épée, after close contests in the sabre and foil earlier in the day saw the Red Rose take a narrow lead.
The day began with the foil contests. The trio of Dan Cornwell, Ali Cormack and Ed Gunnell started well as York raced into an early 25-9 lead after over half of the contests.
The early domination did not deter Lancaster, however, who showed resilience to fight back into the later rounds. The visitors adopted more aggressive tactics, which paid immediate dividends as the York lead was cut to 35-28.
York regrouped to hold on for the victory, though, including an impressive last second hit by Cornwell to give York a 43-37 victory with the foil weapon.
The going was harder for York with the sabre, however. Lancaster, who came into the match one place and one win above the White Rose, got off to a good start and built up a 15-12 lead. Gunnell competed again in the sabre, alongside Adrian Speakman and Bairong Huang.
Huang undertook an aggressive, high-risk and high-reward style, and in his second bout it came good as he single-handedly overturned the deficit and gave York their first lead with this weapon, 20-18.
However, a consistent set of performances from the Lancaster fencers saw them re-establish and gradually extend their advantage, little by little, and the event finished 45-36 to the travelling team. This gave Lancaster a narrow 82-79 overall advantage.
Going into the épée, York knew a strong performance was imperative, but it soon became clear that York were the stronger with this weapon, and coasted to victory.
The épée trio for York was Alex Synadino, George Watkins and Bryan Herling, and each made significant contributions to the victory push. A number of the bouts were heavily tactical, as often seems to be the case in the épée.
Herling gave York the initial 5-0 lead, and the threesome did not look back from here on in. Despite the best efforts of the Lancaster team, they never looked likely to claw back York’s advantage.
Synadino came out on top in a high scoring match-up, as the score progressed from 22-9 to 35-17, before Watkins displayed some impressive moves to put the hosts within touching distance of victory, before Herling completed the job.
The margin of victory in the epee was 45-24. This completed a 124-106 overall victory. The win was a crucial one for York, seeing them leapfrog Lancaster in the BUCS Northern 1A division. It also gives them the psychological advantage ahead of next term’s Roses encounter.