The Justice

Media Credit: Julian Agin-Liebes

Despite finishing seventh out of 24 foils at last year's NCAA Fencing Championships, foil Will Friedman '09 has still been trying to improve his game.

"I was taking a very large first step, which a lot of people could counterattack, and I've been working on taking a smaller step so that doesn't happen," Friedman said. "That's a very large percentage of the touches that opponents score on me, so working on that has helped and will continue to help."

His work paid off last weekend at the Northeast Conference Meet, where he went 9-1, to help the men's team finish with an undefeated record on the day and win the annual meet for the second straight year.

Friedman's one loss was to a fellow NCAA competitor, Brown University junior Adam Pantel, whom Friedman beat at the NCAA Championships last March. If the two should meet again at this year's NCAA Championships, Friedman said he knows what he needs to change.

"I think that I'll be more defensive and less aggressive against him in the future," Friedman said.

The foil squad went 2-7 against Brown at the Brandeis Invitational Dec. 7, but coach Bill Shipman credited the squad's performance in helping the men's team defeat Brown 17-10 at last Saturday's Northeast Conference Meet (see page 13).

As team captain, Friedman said it was partially his responsibility to motivate his teammates to turn things around.

"It was not fun losing to Brown and [Boston College] earlier [in the year], and I believe that I, along with other team leaders, seniors, imparted that thought to the team," Friedman said. "I think we would foster that attitude of more passion and more drive to succeed, and I feel that that has been effective and helped everybody, for the most part."

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