Finishing the regular season in first place with a record of 5-2, along with having senior Niko P, senior Myles D, and sophomore Aiwen W placing in the top 10 in the all city championships, and Aiwen qualifying for all state, the fencing team finished with the strongest season in the history of Galileo fencing.
This historic season was even more remarkable considering the fact that last year the fencing team came in 8th place in the regular season. The dramatic turnaround was no accident though. Senior Niko P said, “A lot of the players on the main roster went to clubs outside of fencing to improve their games.”
In addition, first year coach & biology teacher, Mr. Edmund Chen was a big factor of the mentality of the players. Niko said, “Coach encouraged us really well and made sure that everyone stayed focused during practices and helped us keep composure during games.”
The individual all city event showcased how strong the boys were as 3 out of 5 fencers qualified for the event, with 2 of them placing in the top 10. Niko won 4 out of his 5 matches and placed 8th, while Myles also won 4 out of his 5 matches and placed 7th in the tournament. Sophomore Ray Chen could not quite produce the same amount of success as the 2 seniors though as he went on to win only 2 out of his 5 games and placed 18th in the tournament overall.
Although the girls only had one representative in the top 10 for the all city tournament, it would still go on to be a great season for the girls as both sophomores Aiwen W and Cesia R won 3 games out of their 4 matches, with Aiwen placing 7th and Cesia placing 17th. Aiwen also qualified for all state and placed 5th in the tournament. Aiwen said “All city went pretty smoothly and I didn’t have much pressure to perform at all state so that also went smoothly as well.”
