CHANNEL SERIES JUNIOR OPEN COMPETITION

Plymouth

The second round of the Channel series competition was held in Plymouth recently. Local junior fencers travelled to the West Country to try to avenge the successes that the Plymouth fencers had when they competed in the first round of the Channel Series competition held in Guernsey Earlier this month.

The competition comprised of a number of junior fencers from clubs around the Southwest region of England. The Sarnia fencers were competing against fencers from Plymouth, Bude, Truro, Wellington and Sidmouth.

The first competition was the foil matches with the Guernsey fencers doing extremely well Jamie Ellington and Alex Harlow ended the match in 5 th and 6 th places respectively, fierce matches at the semi final level between local fencers saw Sam parish and Jamie Ellington up against twin Plymouth fencers Warren and Jason Shillingworth. Jamie forced a close encounter but lost by a 15 – 14 margin. Sam was more successful and earned a place in the final by removing his opponent by 13 hits to 12 after 9 minutes of fencing.. Sams’ reward was a match against a British junior team fencer Matthew Billing . An extremely close hard fought match with both fencers unable to stretch out a clear lead until the final hits, resulted in Sam being defeated by 15 – 11.

The ladies foil was equally hard fought with all Guernsey fencers getting to the quarter final stages. Daisy Stevens being knocked out buy the eventual silver medal holder and Rosie Milner coming upon her Namesake Rosie Hill from Plymouth. This proved a close match but the Plymouth fencer used her experience to overcome the Guernsey girl. Highest place went to Katherine Breslin who fenced her way to third place losing only to the eventual winner of the competition, UK team fencer Corinna Lawrence.

The second day of fencing proved the most successful for the boys. The epee competition saw Sam Parish and Alex Harlow fence up to the semi final stages, losing both matches but still gave the lads a creditable third place each.(there are two third places awarded in fencing competitions).

The ladies sabre Rosie Milner produced her best result of the weekend to fight to the semi finals before being defeated by Corinna Lawrence by 15 hits to 10.

In the boys sabre Jamie Ellington worked his way up to the final. He was facing a young fencer who had recently gained third place in the British Isles junior championship and a lad that Jamie had fenced a few times recently Jake Rowley. It was a hard fought match, Jamie just gained the initiative by reaching the break at 8 hits to 7. Jake however is far more experienced at match competition and clawed back to a 12 – 10 lead. Jamie then gained a couple of well timed attacks to draw level hits were then exchanged but Jake took the match by 15 hits to 13, a very close result.

It was a good competition and it is gratifying to see the fencers slowly improving as more competitions against experienced UK junior fencers are held. The fencers are growing in confidence and this is reflected in the closer match results that are recorded. This is showing that local junior fencers can hold their own against highly ranked UK fencers.