The Div 3 Summer National Qualifiers were held last weekend at Hoop
Heaven's Bridgewater facility. 307 fencers competed over the two day
event which resulted in over 75 fencers qualifying for the Div 3
Summer Nationals and 29 fencers receiving new classifications.

Due to the changes in the schedule caused by the State Squads snow
date, we got a late start on Saturday and we had a huge field of 190
fencers to fence off on Sunday. We apologize for the initial delays
this caused, but with the size and layout of the facility and the
Division's ability to set up 16 strips and staff them all with refs,
we were able to make up for much of the lost time and finish by 7:00
pm.

The staff, refs, medical personnel and armorers worked very long,
hard hours to make this all happen for the fencers and each of them
deserves your thanks and appreciation for the jobs that they did. I
want to extend my thanks and appreciation to George Bowden, Paul &
Deborah Szmaida, Bill Nunley and the parents who stayed late to help
us clean up, pack up and load up. And I especially want to
acknowledge and thank my son Quinn who gets up early to help load the
van with the equipment and stays up late to help unload and put the
equipment away.

While I was too busy most of the time to watch the fencing, what I
did catch was most impressive. The large fields provided
exceptionally stiff competition and the fencers who qualified know
that they have earned their chance to compete at the Summer
Nationals. We wish them all good luck.

The Denise O'Connor RYC Youth Championship is on 3/29-3/30 and then
the Div 2 Qualifiers will be held on the following weekend, 4/5-4/6.
I look forward to seeing all of the fencers who competed last weekend
trying out for the Div 2.

Richard