The Red heads to the Brandeis Invitational this weekend in Waltham, Mass. to close out the semester of competition for the 2012 year.

Its a lot harder competition than we had in the past two competitions. The schools are a lot harder. There are more fencers who competed in the world circuit and the national circuit. We have been continuing the pace, said senior sabre Audrey Speer. I am excited.

Cornell will face off against Boston College, UNC, Johns Hopkins, St. Johns, MIT and the host school Brandeis.

[The Brandeis] tournament is going to be really exciting for us. It is our first real challenge of the year. I think that we have all shown really great results, so I think we have a lot to look forward to that weekend, said junior foilist Christine McIntosh. It has always been the kick-off to our really difficult part of the season.

According to the team, the tournaments have been increasing in difficulty this season and will culminate at Brandeis. The hardest competitor that the Red plans to compete against is St. Johns, who was ranked No. 3 last year.

In the history of Cornell, against these specific teams that the Red will face this weekend, the team has a 72-40 record overall.

In the last tournament at Sacred Heart, Cornell had a perfect 8-0 record going 173-43 in individual bouts.

In the last tournament, both the foil and sabre squads went undefeated, while the epees went 6-2 for the day. On the individual front, freshman foilist Angelica Gangemi had a perfect day, 19-0, while senior sabrist Audrey Speer and McIntosh had only one loss.

The Red will return to action after winter break with the Philadelphia Invitational on Jan. 26 where the team will face Duke, Temple, Northwestern, Drew and NJIT. The team will then head to the Ivy League Championship first and second rounds which will provide the athletes with tough competition across the board.

We have been practicing a lot [and] we have a pretty solid group this year. We felt at the last competition that we were pretty cohesive so hopefully it will just get better with each tournament we do, said sophomore epee Olivia Weller. [The season] is going to get more challenging and we are going to progressively fence harder schools but as long as well all back each other up ... it should go [well].

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FENCING | Red Heads to Brandeis Invitational