Fung, Furcall power Newfield boys in fencing

The Newfield boys and Huntington girls fencing teams controlled their matches at the Suffolk County tri-meet at Huntington Intermediate School Saturday, finishing the day undefeated.

The boys, led by Dylan Furcall and senior captain Aldrich Fung, defeated Whitman, 20-7, and Huntington, 16-11. Furcall never lost in foil and Fung went undefeated in sabre. Coach Gregory Klein said before the match, Furcall, who had only one win coming into the day, approached him with a prediction.

"He said, 'Today is the day I'm going to turn it around and get my season back on track,' " Klein said. Fung, who had 27 wins last year, leads a sabre squad that came into this season with high expectations that Klein believes they've met. "The whole sabre squad has not been letting me down. Anything I ask them to do, they do it."

Kenny Brown, a foil fencer and one of three senior captains for Newfield (3-4), and Spencer Anderson, an epee fencer, went undefeated against Whitman. Klein said his Newfield squad has the drive to win and a very bright future.

"They want to win. They have the ability to be one of the top teams in the county and the sky is the limit."

The Huntington girls beat Whitman, 21-6, in their first match of the day, and in their last match, defeated Newfield, 16-11, to finish the meet 2-0, and raise their overall record to 4-2.

Whitman had mixed results on the day, losing both of its boys matches but earning a win against Newfield in the final girls match of the day. In that matchup, Whitman's Beatrice Dal Bello went 2-0 in epee and Alex O'Toole and Courtney O'Conner were 2-0 in foil.

SEE PHOTOSWhitman, Huntington, Newfield tri-meet

Coach Kathleen Kolakowski said her team's success came from being able to correct mistakes it made in their earlier loss to Huntington.

"They were not quite on in the first meet," Kolakowski said. "They were not taking the actions they needed to against Huntington, but they realized their mistakes and corrected it as they went along."

Whitman boys coach Dave Rabinowitz spoke of Joe Babinski, who went 3-0 against Huntington. "He has so much ability on the strip and so much leadership off it," Rabinowitz said of the junior leader in sabre.

After Newfield's strong showing, Klein not only hopes his team will finish the season strong, but that the "fire" he's started to build at Newfield will carry on to next season and beyond.

"I don't see Newfield going anywhere. We're going to be competitive for years to come."