Coach said to practice being patient and working with my point this competition... lately I've been working on being active and improving my prise de fers so this was a nice change of pace.
I had one of the tougher pools at the competition since Adam was in it, but I fenced well. I picked the hand accurately in most of my matches and didn't need to take any risks.
I was seeded 4th after pools and had a bye.
First up I had Kelsey from my club who I had just coached to a 15-14 win in the first round. I fooled around more than I should have in the match and was winning 14-13 before focusing on getting a solid no-nonsense last touch to win it.
Next I had a tall impatient fencer named Wallace. I felt the distance well and made him fall short again and again on his attacks. He got frustrated and I stayed calm to win it 15-3.
Next was a girl named Holmes. She had a fairly weird fencing style with her arm out pretty far and a very good point. I scored with prise de fers in 8 and lost points when I tried to flick her hand and got picked off. I kept trying to land my flicks late into the match so the score ended up fairly close at 15-9.
In the semis I had Godwyn, who had eliminated Maczik just previously. Godwyn was fairly short and looked technically proficient so I started the match fencing with my blade low in 8. One of the first actions he did several high feints, none of which I reacted to, and then tried to finish low, giving me a simple extension to close the line for a single. I kept up the absence du fer game for most of the match and switched between parry-ripostes, counter-attacks and hand picks to easily defeat his rushed attacks. The match finished 15-2 in one period.
In the final I had Brown, who is a fairly unconventional lefty. Usually I get my touches on lefties mostly from counter-attacks to the outside and 6 flicks to the shoulder... neither of which were effective at all against him. Early in the match I stopped fencing a few times on near-misses that I thought were hits - I got down 6-2 and then 7-3 like this. After the first break, I adjusted and began making more solid hits to the body. Brown reacted to feints to the outside even when I was making my feint into thin air, and I used this to make a lot of disengage lunge and/or fleches to the body. I landed a few 4 oppositions and some counter attacks and parries to round out the match.
After the tournament I was told that I got an A09 which maybe will mean that I won't be chronically underseeded this year like I have been the last couple seasons.
08-10-2009 05:41 AM