With the 78th season of the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) Fencing tournament formally coming to a close, the performance of the Ateneo Blue and Lady Eagles can only be described as heartbreaking. The tournament, held from February 10 to 13 at the Blue Eagle Gym in the Ateneo de Manila University, saw the blue and lady fencers struggle to keep their composure under pressure. Ultimately, the team left the halls of the Blue Eagle Gym without garnering any medals to remember the season by.
Sharpening the swords
This was not the case a week before the competition. In fact, the Blue and Lady Eagles were expecting an arguably better season in comparison to their Season 77 performance. Women’s Team Captain Justine Joseph described the team as competition-ready before heading into the tournament. “[Going into UAAP], you could feel that the team, skill-wise, conditioning-wise, brain-wise–our mentality–was right,” Joseph shares. “The team was ready to redeem itself.”
The Blue and White went through demanding training programs in preparation for the season. Aside from general team practices held three times a week, both squads had specialized trainings on the weekends. The teams also had one-point situation bouts where both fencers would be tied with the same score, the first to score the next point winning the bout.
“It’s more of situations than drills,” describes Men’s Team Captain Simon Borja. “That is what we [were] practicing during training.” Through these types of situational bouts, the mindsets of the fencers were being formed to withstand any obstacle and forget about the seriousness that the moment demanded.
Despite this, it was ultimately pressure that had acted as the team’s most crippling opponent. “[We] thought too much about the medal, that [we] stopped thinking about the way we were playing,” explains Borja. “[We] were too scared to lose.”
Joseph points out, however, that the team had a relatively good standing during the first few rounds of the tournament, but admits that their momentum was lost during the later elimination rounds. “Even though you’re performing well, you get scared to lose what you almost have.”
Tournament troubles
Unfortunately, their training to perform with grace under pressure did not translate to the team when it was needed the most. On the first day of the tournament, the team was sluggish compared to the other schools vying for the medals. The team’s Individual Men’s Èpèe bets, Simon Borja and Joao Celestino, both ended the poulings with a rank of sixth and ninth, respectively. Blue fencers Daniel Dickson Yu and Ethan Joshua Bennett placed fifth and eighth, respectively, in the Men’s Individual Sabre event, while Women’s Individual Foil contenders Antonia Elumba and Andrea Ignacio finished fifth and sixth, respectively.
The second day of the tournament kickstarted with the team fielding Kyle Lim and Red Limjoco in the Men’s Foil Individual event. After the poulings, Lim and Limjoco finished in ninth and 11th place. In the Women’s Sabre Individual event, Joseph ranked at eight with a win-loss record of 2-3. Meanwhile, Audrey Uyan ranked at 12th a win-loss record of 1-4 after the poulings. On the other hand, Women’s Èpèe Individual event bets Pat Sarmiento and Andie Ignacio ranked sixth and tenth, respectively. The last event of the day saw no major improvements in the team’s general ranking halfway through the tournament.
The Blue and White failed to collect any medals in the team events held during the third and fourth day of the tournament. The Men’s Épée team was composed of Borja, Celestino, Spencer Galit, and Michael Tan; the Men’s Sabre team was represented by Yu, Bennett, Paolo Villegas, and Brent Trinidad; and the Women’s Foil team was composed of Ignacio, Elumba, Patricia Paulo, and Joseph.
The final day of the tournament saw the Blue and Lady Eagles give their final stand, with the Men’s Foil Team represented by Derich Cabrera, Lim, Limjoco, and Joshua Yu; the Women’s Sabre team represented by Joseph, Audrey Uyan, Eugenie Huibonhua, and Ignacio; and the Women’s Epee team composed of Sarmiento, Ignacio, Precious Castillo, and Mary Rose Hernandez.
The Blue and White started each day strong, as evidenced by their relatively good win-loss records during the poulings. It was only during each elimination bout that the team struggled to continue their initial momentum. It was the team’s inability to tune out the various internal and external hindrances that had cost them what was supposedly their redemption year.
Moving forward, Joseph sees the team’s failure as a wake-up call to instill more discipline in the team. “We’re at the bottom already, and now we can only go up,” Joseph points out. “We have to get over the feelings and learn what we did wrong. It was more of heart and fear that brought us down rather than skill and physicality.”
