After facing the University of Pennsylvania on the strip for the second consecutive Saturday, the Owls came out on top en route to an undefeated afternoon at the Philadelphia Invitational on Saturday.
No. 10 Temple squared off against some of the Top 10 teams in the country like No. 6 Penn and No. 9 Northwestern, but the Owls also battled Duke, Cornell, and Johns Hopkins in the all-day event.
In a 14-13 victory against Penn, one of the biggest individual wins came off the epee weapon of sophomore Alexandra Keft. Still battling a shoulder injury, Keft broke the tie as she defeated her Penn opponent.
“She did a great job today through her injury,” Franke said. “Because we had faced Penn just last week, we were familiar with them. I think we were very focused because we knew we were capable of beating them and [we] were not happy that we lost to them last week. So it was just extra motivation to come back and show what we are capable of doing.”
It was the same result as the Owls took on Northwestern and Duke. The Owls’ foil and sabre teams beat the Wildcats in a 5-4 decision, while the epeeists found themselves on the wrong end of a 9-4 result.
The Owls’ foil group went 7-2 on the strip against the Blue Devils to help lead Temple to a 14-13 edging.
Unlike the other competitions, the Owls took a commanding victory against Cornell as they went 16-11.
In the last battle of the day, Temple dispatched John Hopkins, 20-7. The saber team led the Owls with an 8-1 performance.
Freshman foiler Becca Stanford one of the team’s standouts Saturday, as she went 8-2 and came away undefeated against Penn.
“In foil, both Miranda Litzinger and Becca Stanford did an excellent job,” Franke said. “They really pulled out some key bouts for us. Everybody including Lauren and Gloria did a good job so I think it was really a team effort. It was a long day with a lot of tough schools and they just kept their focus and defensively they were very, very strong.”
Although two fencers were sidelined by injury, Franke hopes to get them back on the strip for their next competition – a rematch with Northwestern.
Danielle Nelson can be reached at danielle.nelson@temple.edu or on Twitter @Dan_Nels.
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