Gordon Technical High School - Tech Log Yearbook (Chicago, IL)

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OPPONENT GORDON 8 New Trier East 9 New Trier West (lost by touches) Culver Military Academy Maine West Maine South New Trier East (won by touches) Maine South Culver Military Academy (won by touches) Maine West New Trier West the Intra-Suburban Tournament. Gor- don took a dismal fifth, but Bruce Ward congratulated them on their dog- ged dtermination and for not giving up hope. Throughout the season, glimpses of the type of team we could be burst out. We beat Culver Military Academy, a team from Indiana who scrimmaged with teams of Ohio State and Notre Dame. But when we faced New Trier East again, we knew that we had to win that one. We were 1-1 against them, and we didn’t want to be second to our arch rivals, who were also our friends. The confrontation was almost the same as our previous meet. The GT foil gave us a strong lead, but epee lost their first two bouts. But there was a difference. The GT fencers had gained experience. In the first meets they lost 5-1 and 5-2. Now they are losing 5-4, or as in the third bout they won. Then all GT epeeists had taken victories and they managed to win Tom Stanley. After the bout is over, Mr. Morrison analyzes the bout with fencer Bruce Mann attacks as his opponent vainly defends himself. Freshman Francisco Scaramuzza presses home an attack while his opponent retreats and counterattacks. enough to tie the score 9-9. The fenc- ing done by GT Squads was enough to give Gordon the victory by touches. When we went down to Indiana to fence Culver, the Foil Team showed what they could do. Tom Argy was his usual strong self, while David Silva kept has steady improvement. But Steve Curtis’ ability was revealed that day. Until then Steve had been like many GT fencers who were losing but gaining the knowledge of how to fence well and began to win. Because of their fencing, Gordon overcame their

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‘and the inexperience of Gordon’s epeeist showed. With only two bouts to go, the score was NTE 9, GT 7. With GT needing both bouts to tie, Luis | Scarmuzza stepped on the strip. In a pitched bout, Luis won. The score was 9-8. The meet’s outcome would be de- termined by the next bout. If NTE won, it would go as a 10-8 victory over Gordon, but if Luis would win the ‘bout the victory would be determined ‘by the number of touches just as in our previous clash with NTE. The fencer for this bout was chosen by Mr. Morrison. Luis fenced well and had shown that he could win under pres- sure, so Mr. Morrison decided to keep him in but Luis fell 5-3. We had lost but we still felt confident because we didn’t lose by much and thought that NTE would be our stiffest competition. But we were not as strong as we ‘thought. We fell to a weak New Trier West. Our losses began to mount, Main 'West and Main South both beat us twice. We gave these defeats grudging- ly, we knew the other teams were not so much better, but just more exper- ienced than we were. But we gain that experience when we lost, and when we stepped off the strip Mr. Morrison and Bruce Ward told us our mistakes and how to correct them. As news got around that Gordon wasn’t good, we developed into better fencers. Their suspicions were confirmed at Number two foilist David Silva salutes his opponent and the director before the bout. Mr. Morrison gives advice to Ron Zaremba as his friends listen in. Sophomore Abundio Aleman lunges and scores against his opponent in a J-V bout. 107

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Ron Zaremba goes for his opponents wrist as his opponent’s points come threateningly near. Fencer Tom Stanley scores a touch to his competitor's mask as he tries for Tom’s knee. David Silva tests to see what his opponent will do if his blade is beaten. problems on the epee strip and won 9- 9 on touches. As Mr. Morrison and the team of Tom Argy, David Silva and Steve Cur- ‘is in foil and Luis Scaramuzza, Tom Stanley and Zeyad Suqi in epee drove to Milwaukee for the first Midwest High School Fencing Championships, none of us expected to take first. We thought we could take third or fourth out of sixteen schools present. We wanted to show the other teams this Steve Curtis “wires up” Arquimedes Perez wishes him good luck. improvement we made during the past months. But we were wrong. Only Luis was knocked out during the prelims. The rest moved into the quarter and semi finals. It was here that Gordon acheived most of its victories. Only Da- vid Silva and Tom Argy made it to the finals. But their victories in that round pushed Main South out of first and Gordon became Midwest Champions by four bouts. Because of this championship Gordon tied with New Trier East for second place in the tea gla? ee be ; “i — Tom Argy for Tom’s upcoming bout, while IHSA. Tom Argy placed 2nd in the Midwest and David took 6th. But for Tom and David, they had one more tournament to fence. It was the 1981 Junior Olympic Fencing Championship in Cleveland, Ohio. The nation’s best under-19 fencers were there and Tom took 24th in the U-19 foil while Dave took 13th in U-16 foil. It was a confusing year, starting at the bottom and working to become the Midwest Champions. This could not have been accomplished without Peter Morrison and Bruce Ward who showed us how to fence and then gave us the confidence to use these skills properly. For this, they have the deepest respect and admiration that we can give them. —Tom Stanley 109