On February 14, an emotional scream filled every corner of Brentwood High School’s gymnasium as Great Neck South’s boys and girls fencing teams became Long Island Champions—making this the first year for both teams to seize the championship in the same season. The girls defeated Ward Melville 14-11, sealing their first ever Long Island championship. The boys responded with the same energy as they beat Newfield, 14-11, reclaiming their 2021-22 title.
The girls are county champions five years in a row, and with a record of 11-0 in the regular season, they expected to defend their title coming into the playoffs. “The toughest part was probably staying level-headed throughout the entire meet,” said senior captain Kira Nguyen. The lady rebels cruised through the playoff semifinals against Jericho with a score of 14-3.
However, the real challenge awaited in the final matchup with Syosset High School. Although the girls beat Syosset in the regular season, the matchup was high-stakes. Coming into the playoffs in second place and losing their only match to Great Neck South, Syosset wanted revenge in the finals. For our Lady Rebels, a victory at counties meant that the girls would be the Nassau County Champions for the sixth year straight—an incredibly rare achievement for high school fencing. “In the counties every single bout mattered—it was give or take. We were on edge every single match,” stated Nguyen.
The two teams arrived at 13-13 for the deciding bout—Justina Hom from GNS vs. Rhea Sood from Syosset. With the individual score of 5-3, Hom secured the win for GNS. “Honestly I felt a lot of relief [in] that moment, and I wanted the seniors to have a chance to fence at [the] Long Island [Championships],” explained Hom.
Although the girls trailed 4-8 in the Long Island Championships, the Lady Rebels’ mental toughness showed through their impressive seven-win streak. Girls Varsity Fencing coach Catherine Sagevick also planned ahead a crucial decision that placed Nguyen in foil rather than her normal epee. This mismatch led her to beat one of the best fencers in Ward Melville, scoring a crucial point for the team. According to Nguyen, “I truly think we won because we wanted it more, not necessarily because we were much better.” With a final touch from sophomore Ashley Nguyen, the girls’ cheers drowned out the noises in the auditorium, as they secured their first ever Long Island Championship.
After a decade serving as a fencing coach for Great Neck South, Coach Sagevick discussed the meaning of the victory to her and the team: “To say it felt good doesn’t compare to the feeling of excitement and the tears of joy from the girls. Thinking about what you can achieve and where you can progress from here, I felt almost validated as a coach.” As a fencer from middle school to college, Coach Sagevick prepared the girls for this win from the start of the season: setting the goal of winning the LIC, creating a chant for motivation, and enforcing mental toughness on all the girls. “Fencing is what got me into teaching. I wanted to share that love with these girls.”
The boys fencing team had a similar story. After easily capturing a win against Herricks High School in the semifinals, the boys went through to the county finals to face Syosset, the team’s biggest rival. The Rebel’s only loss occurred earlier in the regular season against Syosset, making tensions high coming into the meet. Along with the loss last year in the County final, this final meeting was one of the team’s biggest challenges. “Syosset is good, and we knew that it wouldn’t be easy for us to pull out a win,” said junior Captain Dylan Kim. “After losing to Syosset during the season, there was a definite shift in mindset for a lot of us. We realized that we needed to put a lot more work in during practice and take everything a little bit more seriously.”
Tied 13-13 for the last bout, sophomore epee fencer Benson Chou was able to get the winning touch at 3-3 and send the team to the Long Island Championships. “When Benson got the winning touch, we were all super excited and felt like our hard work during the season paid off,” said Kim.
Chou remained humble and credited his teammates and coaches for their dedication and leadership. “We knew we were very much the underdog this year going into [county] finals, but that’s something that we’ve always been. Even though we’ve had such successes, we always end up being the underdog going in and finding a way to win,” stated boys fencing coach Joshua Baravarian.
The Long Island championship final against Newfield was considerably less challenging, though the athletes were mentally drained from the tight Counties’ win. “I took everyone into the corner and we talked about it and just said, ‘Look, everyone focus for the next 20 minutes and we’ll be fine,’” said Coach Baravarian. The pep-talk paid off as our Rebels closed off their season with a 5-2 round to capture the Long Island championship. With two senior starters, Coach Baravarian also explained the training dynamics of the team: “The way we’ve kept such longevity with this program is by having it as a teaching model where the people who are more experienced will help coach and do drills with some of the less experienced fencers. When you have athletes on the team helping to coach it makes it so much more in depth.”
Both the boys and girls fencing teams expressed excitement going into the next season. “The other teams are going to be hungry for a win more than ever, so it’s going to be a challenge to defend our title, but it’s definitely possible if we really put in the work like we did this past season,” said Kim.
“We’re going to have fun every year and see what happens,” said Coach Baravarian.
