Seacoast Fencing Club had a great day at the FIRST Robotics fundraising tournament at our club in Manchester this past weekend. Our fencers took two of the three gold medals, and one event had an all Seacoast final! Marcus Pullo, who trains at our Rochester facility, won the Unclassified Mixed Foil, showing remarkable calm and patience in all his bouts, and excellent fencing. The head coach (and proud father) was overheard by the directors saying “He is a lot more patient than I’ve ever been.” The directors and Seacoast fencers nearby agreed. The Unclassified Mixed Epee was won by Morgan Baker, who now trains at both our club locations, defeating teammate Steve Mahar, who took silver. Morgan was also third in the Mixed Foil. Jackie Mazzone and Randi Sansoucie, both from our Rochester club, tied for third in the Women’s Foil Unclassified. Overall, Seacoast took half the medals in each event that day.
The tournament was filmed by Bladework, a reality/documentary TV show that has featured Seacoast head coach, Chris Pullo in a weekly segment teaching fencing to one of the participants, Nick Apostolides. Never having held a foil before, Nick had 12 lessons, and competed in this tournament, finishing 14th. Watch (or record) the final episode this Friday at 8:00 am on NBC Sports New England. Check out the website www.Bladework.tv
A great day of fencing, and we raised nearly $300 for FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition in Science and Technology), an international robotics competition started here in New Hampshire by Dean Kamen (probably best known as the inventor of the Segway), that now has over 15,000 high school teams worldwide. Their world championship will be held this April in St. Louis, MO.