Four Tufts Women's Fencers Advance To Third Round in NCAA Regional at Home

MEDFORD, MA (March 9, 2025) - First-year Anahat Bawa, sophomore Nitika Subramanian, graduate student Lea Levi and senior Shannon Chen of the Tufts University women's fencing team all finished in the top 21 at today's NCAA Northeast Regionals hosted by the Jumbos at the Gantcher Center.

Those four Jumbos all advanced to the third round of competition in their weapons today. Subramanian led Tufts with a 14th-place finish in epee, while Levi was 16th in foil, Bawa was 19th in epee and Chen was 21st in foil. 

Subramanian just missed the final round of 12 fencers in sabre and led the Jumbos with nine victories today. Her 14th-place effort was a strong improvement on her 31st seed entering the meet. Bawa's 19th place was an even bigger jump from her 41st seed. In the second round of pools Bawa won a match against Columbia's Chloe Gouhin who was 10th in the final results. Also for Tufts in sabre, senior Anat Katz advanced to the second round and was 32nd overall, while sophomore Olympe Jean was 40th and senior MIllie Girardi 44th out of the 53 sabre competitors overall.

Levi had a pair of wins over finalists Jessie Chen (eighth) from Brown University and Renata Chusid (11th) of Cornell University during the foil competition. Seeded 29th, Levi won eight times today and improved 13 places from her seed to 16th. Chen split 10 matches in the first two rounds of pools to earn a spot in the final 21. First-year Sophie Guan fenced into the second round and was 35th overall. First-year Saanvi Kapoor narrowly missed second-round advancement and was 37th out of 53 in foil.

Junior Karen Bei placed 30th out of 65 fencers in epee, including a win over 11th-place finalist Priscilla Leang of MIT which helped Bei move into the second round. Tufts senior Ayelet Book was 55th and senior Olivia Tomasello 58th in the epee competition.

There is no team scoring at the NCAA Regional event. None of the top Tufts finishers were in range of earning berths into the National Collegiate Fencing Championships, so today's action closes out the 2024-25 season for the Jumbos.