February 9, 2020

Banner Season: Individual, relay success leads to Varsity Blues women to third straight championship

Kingston, Ont. (via Queen's Gaels) - The Toronto Varsity Blues kept their Day 1 lead intact during the team relay events, to capture their third consecutive provincial banner as the 2020 OUA Women’s Fencing Championships wrapped up on Sunday at the Queen’s Athletics and Recreation Centre.

The Varsity Blues cruised to the championship with 369 points, a good 104 ahead of silver medalists Western. The Ottawa Gee-Gees narrowly held off RMC for bronze by a lone point with 150.

Coach of the year honours went to Western Mustang’s Carol Chrisite while Ottawa’s Naomi Moindrot-Zilliox was awarded the Dave O’Donnell Sportswomanship Trophy.

DAY 2

The Ottawa Gee-Gees were looking to climb the podium early on in Day 2 action as the team of Moindrot-Zilliox, Prystupa-Maule and Power defeated Toronto’s Drysdale, Ho, Hu and Placko for the OUA gold in foil team relay final 45-35. The bronze medal match saw a much closer result as the Brock Badgers Fellman, Testana, Obillo and Briar won 45-42 over Western.

In the gold medal epee team relay, Toronto continued to rise above the competition as Lui, Principe, Yarovaya and Xu defeated Western’s Cheng, Nova, Kasprzak and Widjaja by just a point 43-42. The host Queen’s Gaels lost out on bronze to the Ryerson Rams squad of Belaoussoff, Greenwood, Kis-Toth and Rampertab 45-39.

Chandler, Falkson, Jeffrey and Yanes gave the Varsity Blues their second gold medal of the day as they defeated Western’s Liu, Dosen, Yao and Perugu 45-36. The host Gaels Burghgraef, Zeng, Heeps and Lang broke through in the bronze medal matchup with a dominant 45-16 result over RMC.

DAY 1

The Maitre Ken Wood trophy was secured by top-seeded Gee-Gee Naomi Moindrot-Zilliox over the sixth-seeded Siobhan Drysdale from the Toronto Varsity Blues in a 15-0 decision. Second seed Stephanie Prystupa-Maule secured Ottawa their second medal with a 15-11 decision over fourth-ranked Erika Dominguez of the Ryerson Rams in the bronze medal matchup.

The individual epee it came down to a battle between second seed Leanna Lui from Toronto and fourth seed Nicola Cheng from Western after Cheng knocked off top seed Emily Principe from the Varsity Blues in the semi-final. Lui was able to enact revenge for her teammate and escape with the gold and Dr. Allan English Trophy defeating Cheng 15-9 while Principe took home the bronze.

In the individual women’s sabre final, 15th seed Esther Isadora Falkson of Toronto took down second seed Frederique Santerre in the round of 16 adding the seventh, and third seeds afterwards to her list of upsets en route to a finals matchup with top seed Lily Liu from Western for the Fred Wach Trophy. Lieu secured the gold in a close 15-13 match and Toronto’s Rebecca Jeffrey, the fourth seed, snagged bronze.

FINAL STANDINGS

Toronto - 369

Western - 265

Ottawa - 150

RMC - 149

Queen’s - 145

Brock - 123

Ryerson - 122

McMaster - 70

Carleton - 53

Waterloo - 46

Trent - 5