Westbury Wins Fencing National Championship

Cameron Westbury of Presidio Fencing Club is now a National Champion, having won the Division II Mens Foil Event at the 2009 Fencing National Championships held last week in Grapevine, TX.

Westbury earned a berth to the event by first winning the Southern California National Qualifiers back in March.  In Texas, he competed in a field of over 150 other qualifiers from around the country.  He
decidedly won the championship bout 15-10.

Westbury is a 2009 graduate of Laguna Blanca and will be attending Occidental College in Los Angeles this coming fall.

Also competing in the Division II Mens Foil event was Presidio’s Keric Moore, a senior at San Marcos High School.  Moore went undefeated in the preliminary rounds and placed 9th overall, his best finish at a national event.

In the women’s events, Sophia Russo of Presidio Fencing Club competed in the Youth 12 Foil.  After surviving a tough preliminary round, she was knocked out in the second tier of eliminations, finishing 48 out of 90.  Russo attends the Crane School.

The Presidio Womens Epee Team of Sophia Rubenstein, Christiana Lyman, and Lydia Kaestner (Captain) lost their first match to the Fencers Club of Austin Texas 39-45.  The three then went on to fence in the individual womens epee event, in which Lyman finished 31, Kaestner 38,
and Rubenstein 58 out of over 120 entrants.

Lyman knocked out Kaestner after the two teammates met in the round of 64, and Rubenstein suffered a very narrow defeat (14-15) after her opponent received a technical foul for nearly taking out one of Rubenstein’s knees.

Lyman is a student with the Santa Barbara Homesteaders, and Kaestner will be a senior at Dos Pueblos High School this fall.  Rubenstein is a 2009 graduate of San Marcos High School and will be heading to Sarah Lawrence College next month.