Medal winners - Ben Leider (3rd), Eric Mueller (2nd), JR Oakley (1st)
On the 20th of August, Darrell “Pake Powerhouse” Jung, Ben “See You” Leider, and Eric “Battlin’ Bavarian” Mueller gathered at the Ala Wai for the Summer Epee Smackdown. For Ben, this was his last competition under the HFC colors for a while, as he is off to get his pHD in some esoteric topic the rest of us don’t understand. For Eric, on the other hand, this was his first to competition in about 15 months. Naturally, he forgot his shoes and his glove, and, of course, his weapons promptly failed, this despite having passed the evening before!
The single pool of nine Fencers provided ample opportunity to demonstrate…or not..each participant’s epee skills. The “Pake Powerhouse” and “See You” cruised through the pools ending up with byes. Meanwhile, our favorite Teuton heard the French phrase “La belle!” followed by a call against him so many times we considered renaming him the “Battered Burgundian.” Then came the DE-s.
True to his REAL nickname, the Battlin’ Bavarian faced off against O’ahu Fencing Center’s Donna Rapadas to avoid the distinction of being dead last. He avoided it. He next faced La Salle’s Guyla Schreiber who had given our hero the hardest time in the pools. Less than three minutes later, Eric was on the way to the medal round! In the meantime, the lights went out in the “Powerhouse,” as Darrell fell to Henry Chang of OFC. Benjamin knocked out Wayne Miyamoto of Sword Fight Club Hawai’i to advance to the round of four. At this time, we had a medical timeout for another fencer, denying Eric a rematch but advancing him to the Gold Medal Round. When the tournament got rolling, Benjamin’s swan song (“‘See you,’ Leider!”) was a tough 15-10 loss to SFC’s JR Oakley, who then polished off Eric 15-12 in the gold medal round.
A fond farewell, a successful return, a two medal haul…It was a good day to fence!
For full results, go to FRED.
