Encinitas Fencing Academy fencers David “Lucky” Polakoski, Ilyssa Freiburger, Roark Harris, and Allison Chan capped off a month of competitions with strong performances at the Bladerunner ROC/RJC event, held by the UCSD fencing team on November 4th and 5th.

Lucky competed first in the Men’s Epee event. He had spent the week battling illness and trying to recover much lost sleep, but managed to shine in pools, coming out with a perfect record and placing 5th going into the elimination round. A bye the first round and a favorable matchup in the second led him quickly to the round of 32, where he faced an interesting bout. After some probing and stubbornness on the part of both fencers, the first period ended early in non-combativity with a score of 2-1 for Lucky. The match eventually went to the priority minute, with Lucky gaining priority, and up 2-1. The score increased furiously as the seconds ticked away. Unfortunately, Lucky’s opponent gained the upper hand with a score of 8-7 with only 18 seconds remaining. Lucky was unable to bring the score back around, and lost the bout 8-11. He placed 17th of 90 fencers in the tournament.

Ilyssa was up next in the Junior Women’s Epee event. This was her second competition ever, and she represented EFA well, meeting many new fencers and winning a bout in pools. Allison and Roark competed on Sunday in very difficult events. Roark scored a victory against crosstown rival Team Touche in the pools. Both fencers were knocked out in their first round of DEs, but they took a lot away from the tournament and will be incorporating their information into practice.

With this tournament, there will be a short break before the next round of tournaments: the next San Diego Youth Cup event will be at the San Diego Fencing Center on Sunday 11/19, and the next Youth/Junior event will be at EFA on Saturday 12/2. Complete tournament details can be found on AskFRED. 

Full results for the Bladerunner tournament can be seen here.