POUGHKEEPSIE, NY (November 9, 2025) – The Tufts University women's fencing team started its 2025-26 season by winning five of its eight matches at the Vassar Invitational on Sunday.
The Jumbos had victories over Drew University (24-3), Sacred Heart University (24-3), Yeshiva University (27-0), Lafayette College (25-2) and Fairleigh Dickinson University (19-8). The losses came against Wagner College (14-13), Yale University (18-9) and Cornell University (18-9).
The Tufts foil and saber weapon groups both finished the day with 53 wins in their 72 bouts, a .736 winning percentage. The epee team had a 44-28 record for the tournament (.611). The Jumbo overall team record for individual matches came in at 150-66 (.694).
Senior All-American
Karen Bei led Tufts with 14 wins on Sunday against four losses for a .778 winning mark in epee. First-year
Emily You won 12 epee matches and compiled a .600 winning rate. Junior tri-captain
Mikayla Joseph posted 10 epee victories and first-year
Olivia Judicke captured eight of her 11 bouts (.727).
The saber team was led by a 12-4 record (.750) from first-year
Emily Xu. Tufts also had a good debut by first-year
Asher Boynton with an 11-6 saber mark. Co-captains
Anahat Bawa (five wins) and
Olympe Jean (four wins) added to the saber success for the Jumbos.
Eight different Jumbos fenced in the foil division on Sunday. They were led in victories by sophomore
Jess Charalel with an 11-1 record (.917), while first-year
Kiki Liu had an undefeated (10-0) debut.
Katie Han added to the list of strong starts for Tufts on Sunday with a 10-2 mark (.833) in saber, as did
Chloe Wang with an 8-1 record (.889). Tri-captain
Saanvi Kapoor and
Layla Roy both had four victories for the Jumbos in saber, while
Sophie Guan and Emily Yeung submitted two each.
Though Tufts dropped its matches against Yale and Cornell, the two best teams they faced, the Jumbos had some excellent performances in those matches. The saber team defeated Yale 5-4 led by three victories from Boynton. Bei won twice in epee versus Yale. Xu picked up a pair of wins in the saber matches against Cornell.
The close loss against Wagner saw Xu in saber, Kapoor, Han and Roy in foil and Bei in epee all win twice. Tufts took the foil matches 6-3 against Wagner. The 19-8 win against FDU featured three epee wins from Bei, two each in saber by Bawa, Boynton and Xu and two foil victories from Guan and Wang.
The Jumbos will return to action November 22-23 with a trip to the Air Force Academy for the Western Invitational.
--JUMBOS--
