October 27, 2025

Isabella Earns Her “E” Rating, Olivia Takes Medals in Richmond, Moms Double Medal Epee!

Well, it was a great weekend to say the least. Here’s the recap:

Olivia Takes 7th at River City Rumble
Olivia McKinney was in Richmond for the River City Rumble Regional competing in the Y12 Women’s Foil against 29 other fencers. She only lost one bout in her pools and seeded 8th going into elimination rounds. She breezed through the first elimination and toppled a higher seed in the second round 15-3. That win moved Olivia up to 7th place where she lost in the quarter finals. Olivia finished in 7th place with a top 8 medal.

FencingTimeLive.com Results: https://fencingtimelive.com/events/results/9EF5FCA52BF34DDE97292B54CA720873
Photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/bh8t3rVJaJSjmY7X7

Isabella Earns Her E Rating In Foil
Over the weekend, we held our 17th Annual Harry Rulnick Tournament.

DIV3 Women’s Foil: Isabella Lee earns her E rating in foil. She lost 2 in her pool of 9 fencers which seeded her into 2nd place in the elimination rounds. In the second elimination round, Isabella held on to defeat Thea Wang from Edge of America Fencing Club 11-10. Rachel Joseph defeated the top seed and former AAFA fencer, Sabrina Krupenko in the semi-finals. Isabella took a lead on Rachel and held on to it for the the entire round to take first place.
VET Men’s Foil: Peter Cohen (Mia’s dad) ventured into a deeply experienced vet men’s foil tournament. He got a win in his pools, although the others were losses, he scored several points. Peter walked away in 6th place.
Y10 and Y12 Foil: We combined the Y10 and Y12 foil events. Gideon only took one lost to a dominating Mia Cohen who went undefeated in the pools, both are in the Y12 age group. Rowan Brown also notches a win against an older group of youth foil fencers as a Y10 fencer. Both Gideo and Mia sail through their elimination rounds before meeting each other again in the finals. This time, Gideon got the best of Mia, defeating her 15-9 to take a well earned gold medal.
VET Men’s Epee: Vet Men’s Epee is always a deep field of experience and Peter again weathered the storm. Peter had several 4-5 losses giving many fencers a difficult time but didn’t get a win in the pools. Although Coach Gerhard defeated fellow AAFA Steve McRae in the pools, Steve showed Coach Gerhard why he currently has a C in epee 🙂 in the elimination rounds and humbles him with a 10-6 win. Steve now faced Vet Men’s Epee giant John Amoroso from Apex Fencing. He lost to John, but secured a second place medal.

VET Epee Moms Reach The Podium!

VET Women’s Epee: 5 moms braved the fencing strip, and after 2 weeks of crash course in fencing, competing in their first tournament against a highly experienced set of vet women’s epee fencers from NC and SC. Everyone notched a win in the pools and nobody left undefeated. Eyllen (Mia’s mom) entered the elimination round with the highest seed of the AAFA mom’s at 4th place. Such as the nature of epee, you never know! And our mom’s have been fencing each other for 2 week! Holly (Mesha’s mom) upset Eyllen in the first round and squeaked by with an 10-8 win. This guaranteed a medal for the AAFA Women’s Epee crew. Then Audra (Hanna’s mom) who was the 7th seed coming out of the pools, upset the number 2 seed in the first round when she scored a crowd rousing 10th touch in la belle bout against Patti Hughes, winning by the closest of margins 10-9. This now guaranteed our AAFA moms 2 positions on the podium. Although Holly and Audra were defeated in the semi-finals, they danced away with the 3rd place tie silver medals, both in their first fencing tournament.

Askfred Results: https://www.askfred.net/tournaments/af6e77b5-827a-47b9-88dd-094e1f311c9c/results
FencingTimeLive.com Results: https://www.fencingtimelive.com/tournaments/eventSchedule/14CA5B93F13649DA941A60170217F5C7#today
Photos, Day 1 (DIV3 Women’s Foil, Vet Men’s Foil): https://photos.app.goo.gl/UwziQcdgav4zk16d6
Photos, Day 2 (Y10/Y12 Mixed Foil, Vet Men’s Epee, Vet Women’s Epee): https://photos.app.goo.gl/hNhdjbnWo17wAYrE8