On February 25th, 2024, CRLS made history in two key ways: for one, the school hosted the Massachusetts High School Fencing State Championships for its first time, and for two, the women’s team captured a record-breaking second-place finish in the competition.
“I’m proud of my team,” said the fencing coach, Gregory Berger. “I’m very proud of what you guys have done, and what you have accomplished.”
The women’s success, Berger explained, was largely due to their diligence. Practices had been running three times a week since the fall, and many fencers took additional lessons at private clubs, or practiced at home by watching videos of past fencing bouts, working out, and air fencing. With a high attendance requirement, the team proved extremely dedicated throughout the fall and winter seasons.
“You can’t force someone to want to learn fencing, but by investing in everyone that does, you’re going to get farther,” saber women’s captain Elena Montalvo Ramirez ’25 told the Register Forum. “We only need four people to be on the strip; we only need four people to be really invested, to be there, to be present, and to be fencing.”
There are three different types of fencing—épée, saber, and foil—all similar to each other but different in the way that cross-country skiing is different from alpine and snowboarding. Teams are separated by gender and are made up of three main fencers and one alternate. At tournaments, each main fencer goes up against each of the opposing teams’ fencers for a total of nine bouts. At the state championships, genders were grouped together, meaning that out of a total of 27 bouts across women’s épée, saber, and foil, whichever school won 14 got to advance to the next round. The CRLS women’s fencing team, which was initially seeded third, ended up placing second out of 11 other schools. “It meant a lot to people from CRLS,” épée women’s fencer Eleanor Younger ’27 told the Register Forum.
For Ramirez, the win was also important in terms of gender. “For the first big win, first of all, to have been the women’s team is just something I’m very proud of,” she explained. “We invest so equally into our men’s and women’s teams, maybe even more to our women’s because we have so many on our team, and it was so obvious that other teams don’t do that.”
CRLS’ men’s team, meanwhile, wasn’t able to make it as far, losing to the first school they fenced against, Concord Carlisle. “I was just walking into the blade,” men’s épée captain Addison Rosenblum ’25 told the Register Forum. “I just did it again and again and again.”
Still, what men lost in fencing, they made up for in their cheering. Men’s saber captain Ezra Lee ’26, joined by foil captain Finn Graham ’26, Aiden O’Neil ’25, Edgar See ’27, and Gareth Flandro ’27 practiced a complicated cheerleading routine for several days before the tournament, amping the women’s team up throughout the day. “I don’t think I found a better community at all at CRLS,” Lee told the Register Forum. “I had a lot of fun supporting the team, and a lot of fun just standing there, watching, with tears of joy.”
This article also appears in our March 2024 print edition.
