Ward Melville: boys, girls fencing champs

Beatrice Dal Bello wore Italy on her back and Whitman's hopes on her blade.

Consider her, then, the ultimate interloper.

Because it was Dal Bello, an exchange student with a telltale ITA on her uniform jacket, who denied Ward Melville the complete sweep. The Patriots, in what has turned into an annual crowning, took both the girls and boys team championships at Brentwood yesterday, and five of the six individual county titles.

But Dal Bello, a junior epee fencer who was ranked seventh in her age bracket in Italy, went undefeated in the championship round, dispatching Centereach's Katharine Lynch, 5-1, in the deciding bout. Around her, nothing but Patriots: Demi and Alexa Antipas in foil and sabre, and Jay Petrie, Mark Pulaski and Michael Shaw in foil, sabre and epee. Shaw was the only fencer to not go undefeated, dropping a bout to Half Hollow Hills' Matthew Ross.

"It's been a great season," Dal Bello said. "We worked very hard during practice, but experience is key."

She knows a thing or two about experience - she's been fencing since "Italian second grade; like first grade here," she said.

And, if the name of this particular game is experience, there's no program currently more experienced at winning than Ward Melville.

The boys team took its fifth straight county championship, while the girls amassed No. 10.

"It never gets old," girls coach Jennie Salmon said. "Each year it's different, with a different squad . . . we tell the girls that they're not here to protect what people have done before them. Make your own story."

The story Saturday was the Antipas girls and strong showings from Alexa Parry in epee and Kristen Fischbach in foil, both of whom squeezed into the championship round.

"There is pressure" to keep the streak alive," Parry said. "You just strive to be at the top. Every bout matters, no matter what."

The boys, certainly, felt the pressure of their fencing ancestors. After four rounds, seventh-seeded Half Hollow Hills trailed Ward Melville by only three points in the composite team score, but clean sweeps against No. 5 Huntington and No. 6 Newfield gave the Patriots the wiggle room they needed for the relatively clean win. The boys took the title with 50 team points, while second-place Hills had 40. The margin for the girls was even greater: 53 to Huntington's 39.

"They know we're undefeated," Fischbach said. "They want to be the one to beat us, so they try extra hard."

Better luck next year.