2009 News Archive

2009 Presentation Dinner and Fight Night (6 Dec)

Last night's Annual Presentation Dinner and inaugural Fight Night was a great success and enjoyed by the fencers, their families and guests and representatives our fellow Victorian fencing clubs.  There were numerous highlights to the evening foremost amongst which were the newly formatted"Best and Fairest " award and the exhibition bouts between two of Victoria's best fencers, Dean Williams and Charles Hemery.  On a piste transported (at great effort) from the Fencing Factory that occupied centre stage in the room, Dean and Charles fought two very close and entertaining bouts with Dean emerging victorious on this occasion.  Many thanks to both fencers for their contribution to the evening, and also to Lucas, Ned, Matt and Gabe Bartel for providing the supporting bouts on the "Fight Night" bill.

As usual the Best and Fairest award was was a tightly run race decided in the final round with one point separating the Ned Fitzgerald  and TC Reynolds with Ned winning the 2009 Best and Fairest Award.  The Most Improved Fencer award went to Sam Esler, and Outstanding Achievement Awards went to Jenna Yelland, Lucas Webber, Matt Foster and TC Reynolds.  Congratulations to the award winners, but also to all the fencers in the club, for contributing to a very successful year for Blacklords.

An event such this one takes a lot of organisation.  For that we thank Grant Foster, Kiara O'Gorman, Geoff Webber, Zoltan Vilagosh and, of course, Rob Di Pasquale.  

Australian Open & Veterans Championships  (27 Nov - 1 Dec).

Six of our fencers ventured to Sydney to compete in the Australian Open and Veterans Championships. All are to be congratulated, particularly Zoltan Vilagosh who took out two Silver medals and finished top of the 50-59 year age group in the Veteran Foil and Veteran Sabre events, and Jenna Yelland who was a member of the Victorian Open Foil Team that took out the Bronze (=3rd).  It was an invaluable experience for all our fencers to have the opportunity to compete against and watch the best fencers in the country. The full set of results for the Blacklords fencers is below.

November Competition Results

FV State Open and Veterans Championships (14-15 Nov)

We had 9 fencers from the club (8 males and 1 female) in the Victorian Open and Veterans Championships across four events.  Geoff Webber was particularly adventurous competing in three of those including his first sabre event.  Zolton Vilagosh had a successful competition with the Gold medal in Veterans Foil Championship and a Bronze in the Open Men's Foil.  The full set of results for the Blacklords fencers is below with some very impressive results for our junior brigade given that they were fencing with the adults.

FV Victorian Schools Championships (Nov 8)

Another very successfull day out for our fencers.  They continue a wonderful year for the  Blacklords junior fencers.

Vic Bandits Raid NSW U11 and U13 State Campionships (18 Oct)

The "Vic Bandits", a group of 10 young fencers, including 5 from Blacklords, "raided" the NSW State U11 and U13 Championships in Sydney on October 18.  They escaped with a 2 Gold medals, 2 Silver medals and a Bronze medal.  The Blacklords members of the team did very well: Gabe Spano took the Bonze (=3rd) in the U11 Boys, Ned Fitzgerald and TC Reynolds took the Gold and Silver in the U13 Boys, with Matt Foster 5th and Sam Esler 30th.  A victorian team comprising Ned, TC, Gabe and Alana Scott (MFC)  took on teams from NSW and New Zealand and emerged victorious.

Oct 18: State Novice and B-Grade Championship

With no Blacklord's fencers competing in the Novice events our attention turns to the the B-Grade (Open) Championships.  The Club was represented by Geoff Webber and Adam and Sally Lovegrove.  Congratulations Sally who was awarded the silver medal for the women and to Geoff who took out the bronze medal for the men.

Oct 11: VSCF Individual Club Challenge

Congratulations to all the Blacklords fencers who competed in this event and collectively deliverd  oustanding performances in the foil competitions.  With eleven medals, a clean sweep of the boys in the U13s, a couple of close fouths (U15: Gabe Bartel and U17: Matt Foster), Sam Esler's continued improvement and Charlotte and Liam Blake making their competition debuts, it was a great day out for the Club. Every fencer's performance contrubuted to Blacklords being the inaugural winners of the Club Challenge.  A perpetual trophy will be presented to the club at the Annual Fencing Victoria Awards dinner.

AFF National Junior (U20) Championships

Three Blacklords fencers (Ned Fiztgerald, Lucas Webber & Jenna Yelland) took part in last week's AFF National U20 (Junior) championships and helped Victoria to a one point win over NSW.  In the men's event Lucas and Ned finished 20th and 29th in a field of 36, with Ned desparately unlucky not to finish higher after losing 14-15 to the 4th ranked fencer.  Jenna finished 20th in the women's event.  These are very good outcomes for fencers aged between 12 and 14 competing well out of their age groups.  

Lucas and Jenna were selected to represent Victoria in the teams events.  The men's team finished on top with Lucas receiving his first National Gold Medal.  The Victoria B team, of which Jenna was a member, finished 5th.

Congratulations to Lucas, Ned and Jenna for admirably representing the Club and Victoria.

Blacklord's Competition Results August-September

20 September 2009 - Novice Foil
Matt Foster continued his good form in the Novice Foil competition with another gold medal. Gabe Spano finished in 5th place, with Sam Esler and Charlie Harding finishing 9th and 10th. Well Done to all.

13 September 2009 - State U13 and U20 Foil Campionships
In the Under 13 Foil competition Ned Fiztgerald took out the Gold medal, T.C. Reynolds won the Silver Medal, with Matt Foster finishing in 5th after receiving a blow to the neck during a DE bout
Jenna Yelland finshed 4th in the Under 20 Womens Foil, and all three Blacklords fencer's in the Under 20 Mens Foil (Lucas Webber, 4th; Ned Fitzgerald 5th; Sam Vero, 7th) finished in the top eight.

23 September 2009 - Under 15 Team Foil
Blacklords entred 2 teams in this competition with great success. Blacklords 1 (Ned Fitzgerald, Matt Forster, T.C. Reynolds and Lucas Webber) took out the Gold Medal. Blacklords 2 (Gabriel Bartel, Ajay Bhalla, Sam Esler and Alan Lun) finished in 5th place. Congratulations to fencers from both teams for so ably representing the club.

16 August 2009 - Novice and B-Grade Foil
More medals for Blacklords fencers. Matt Forster picked up the Gold medal in the Novice event with Gabe Spano in 4th place. In the B-Grade comp Ned Fitzgerald won the Bronze medal, T.C. Reynolds finished 4th amongst 8 Blacklords fencers finishing in the top 16

19th July 2009 - FV Open Foil
The highlight of this competition was a silver medal to Sally Lovegrove in the Victoria Womens Cup. Congratulations also to the Blacklords men, all four of whom (Lucas and Geoff Webber, Matt Foster and Adam Lovegrove) finished in the top 16.

DAY 1 (9 July 1009)

The Men's and Women's U15 Individual Foil events took place today with the success of Blacklords fencers at the State level translated to success at the National level. T.C. Reynolds took the Gold and Lucas Webber took the Bronze in the Men's event with Ned Fitegerald also finishing in top 16 (11th). Jenna Yelland completed the successfull day with Bronze in the Women's event. A great start to the Championships!

DAY 2 (10 July 1009)

U15 Men's and Women's Team Foil events. Three Blacklord's fencer's were selected for Victorian U15 Men's, team Lucas Webber, T.C. Reynolds, and Ned Fitsgerald, and together with C.J. Hobbs (Fioretto's) took out the silver after a battle with a strong NSW Team. Jenna Yelland (Blacklord's), Annia Kadis, Rosa Dyson and and Emily Male comprised the Victorian U15 Women's team that after a tense, hard fought confrontation with the NSW team won the Gold medal with a one point victory (42-41) in the final seconds.

DAY 3 (11 July 1009)

The Men's U17 Indivigual Foil. Three Blacklords fencers competed and were the the highest ranked Victorians; T.C. Reynolds (9th), Lucas Webber (26th) and Ned Fitegerald (30th). A very good effort from guys competing at a national level outside their age group.

DAY 4 (12 July 1009)

U17 Men's Team Foil events. Two U13's (T.C.and Ned), one U15 (Lucas) and one U17 (Dushan Karovic-Wynne) made up the Victoria B team that faced the daunting task of taking on the four giants of the Western Australia A team. They gave the guys from WA a battle they had not expected but could not hold out for the win, going down 45-43. Well done guys.

DAY 5 (13 July 1009)

No Blacklords fencers are competing on the final day of the competition. 

No Blacklords' fencers

This weekend's John Feather's Foil Competition saw Blacklords fencers essentially winning every division contested. The under 13's was very competitive with Ned Fitzgerald taking out gold in the graded division over a very good fencer from Auckland, and Richard Kasmiran taking out gold in the ungraded. The under 15's boys saw yet another Blacklords clean sweep (see previous news item) with Lucas Webber taking out gold in a great come back over Ned who took the silver and Matt Foster taking out the bronze. Sally Lovegrove took out gold in the U15 Girls and Jenna Yelland taking silver. In the U15 ungraded Jake Rogers took out the gold in his first comp. Under 20's Boys was a repeat of the U15s for the boys in another clean sweep, and the girls reversed their order with Jenna taking gold and Sally the silver.

With 13 medals total in total this was the best results ever for Blacklords (an outcome that did not seem possible after the outstanding results of the previous competition) and saw a number fencers competing for the first time. Congratulations to all who competed.  Keep up the great work and train even harder!

These results along with the previous junior comp results are a clear indication that our Juniors are the ones to beat.

Medal summary

• Graded
• Lucas Webber -   2 gold (u15 & u20)
• Ned Fitzgerald -   1 gold (u13) 2 silver (u15 & u20)
• Jenna Yelland -    1 gold (u20) 1 silver (u15)
• Sally Lovegrove    1 gold (u15) 1 silver (u20)
• Matt Foster -       2 bronze (u15 & u20)
• Ungraded
• Richard Kashmiran - 1 gold (u13)
• Jake Rogers - 1 gold (u15)

Blacklords Medalists
John Feathers Foil Competition
26 April 2009
L-R: Ned Fitzgerald, Sally Lovegrove, Jenna Yelland, Lucas Webber, Matt Foster.  Absent: Richard Kashmiran & Jake Rogers

A great start to the season with Gold in the U13, U15 and U20s, and many other positive signs for the year to come.  Highlights included:

• 2 dual medalists (Lucas - 2 Gold! and Ned - 2 Bronze!)
• Matt's first FV Medal (and it was a Gold one)
• Blacklords clean-sweep in Boys U15
• Jenna's recovery from difficult poules conflict to get silver in U15 Girls
• Blacklords Boys currently hold the number 1 rankings in U13, U15 and U20

U13 Foil Boys
  Gold to Matt Foster (first medal!)
  Bronze to Ned Fitzgerald (unlucky with some equipment failures)
U15 Foil Girls
  Silver to Jenna Yelland (busy competing in 2 divisions 
  simultaneously
U15 Foil Boys
  Gold to Lucas Webber
  Silver to Gabe Bartel
  Bronze to Ned Fitzgerald
U20 Foil Mens
  Gold to Lucas Webber
  Bronze to Sam Vero

Blacklords Foil Medallists
29 March 2009
L-R: Gabe Bartel Silver Boys U15, Jenna Yelland Silver Girls U15, Matt Foster Gold Boys U13, Lucas Webber Gold Boys U15, & Gold Mens U20, Ned Fitzgerald Bronze Boys U13 & Bronze Boys U15 Absent: Sam Vero Bronze Mens U20