Sharing the end of their individual matches with their men’s counterpart, the lady fencers of the six universities also took the piste once again with their blades to compete as coherent body as they battle side by side their comrades for the start of the team match-ups.
Battling yet again
Competing once again in the afternoon to reflect the 1st day’s events, the women of the six universities’ once again took hold of their foil blades to once again either defend or geab the coveted gold for the pride of their respective camps.
Entering the matches with a clear advantage were UE and UST who similarly enjoyed the position of their male counterparts in the earlier epee match. Capitalizing on their advantage, both fencing powerhouse took time to observe the moves of their possible opponents who failed to grab a similar advantage.
On the UE side of the bracket, the match that was observed between school rival ADMU and DLSU who competed in what could best be described as the days longest and tensest women’s match. Down by an initial ten point, the DLSU squad composed of individual bronze medallist Mika Castillo along with May Montenegro, Bea Villaroman and Geraldine Tianzon never gave up as they slowly caught up against their Katipunan based counterpart which composed of Andrea Ignacio, Antonia Elumba, Pat Paulo and Elise Chanco to narrow their lead to a mere 6 points during the later minutes of the match. Sadly for the DLSU’s side, however, their herculean effort to catch up was not good enough as time got the better of them and forced the match to end 43-36 in favour of the Blue Lady Fencers who advanced to the semis only to be forced to take home a bronze as their first medal for the season after being defeated by UE in a one sided 45-17 match.
On the side of UST was the match-up between UP composed of Inna Cua, Christianne Pascual, Andrea Baring, and and Clara Senga and FEU which was composed of Darlene Drio, Florida Galang, Maria Sanchez and April Ventura. The match between the two ultimately ended with FEU gaining the upper hand as they defeated the fencing championship’s host with a score of 44-30. The FEU team however would suffer painfully against UST’s foil bronze medallist Anchinette Macaraig and Dyren Penaflor supported by Kathlyn Echavez and Sarah Bermejo as they would lose with a painful score 45-25 to force them to relish the bronze.
The finals match of the women’s foil between UE and UST ended similarly to how the men’s epee and sabre final match as it seems that the combination of UE’s gold medallists Justine Tinio (individual foil) Keren Pangilinan (individual epee) and silver medallist Wilhelmina Lozada (individual foil) supported by Kea Gonzales proved to be far too much for the Espana based fencers as they are forced to satisfy themselves for the 3rd time that day as they’re match ends 45-33 in favour of the incumbent women’s champions.
