Syosset girls fencing wins Nassau championship; face Ward Melville on Tuesday for LI crown

Autumn Trieu clapped her hands with excitement as Syosset girls fencing lined up on the strip. With numerous fencers donning face paint and a wide smile, the air carried a sense of disbelief at Manhasset High School Saturday.

And yet, when the strips were picked up and cameras were packed away, the result still stood. Syosset girls fencing sits atop Nassau County for the first time in program history.

“We’re super proud,” Trieu said. “We’ve been working so hard for this. Each year we made it to the semifinals or finals, and we were just this close. And this year, we finally did it and we’re so happy.”

No. 4 Syosset avenged its heartbreaking 2024 loss in the county championship to Great Neck South by beating the top-seeded Rebels, 14-7, in the semifinals. It followed up the emotional win with a dominant display against No. 3 Jericho in the championship, defeating the Jayhawks 14-5.

Syosset will take on Suffolk champion Ward Melville Tuesday at Cold Spring Harbor High School at 6 p.m.

“It just makes me vindicated as a coach, especially after such a hard loss last year,” Moon said.

Foilist Sophie Wang admitted to feeling “kind of scared” entering Saturday’s semifinal, given that Syosset also lost 18-9 to Great Neck South in the regular season.

“But we practiced really hard the last few days,” Wang said. “And we beat them.”

Syosset’s sabre and foil teams were unstoppable, winning all their bouts against Jericho to the tune of 13 of Syosset’s 14 points. Syosset sabreists Alexa Lim, Winona Zheng, Elise Jung and Esha Nayak combined to go 14-2 across the semifinal and championship, with seventh-grader Zheng going 5-0 herself.

“We are very dedicated to supporting each other,” Lim said. “I believe that’s the main factor of why we won.”

Syosset’s foil team of Wang, Erin Choi and Thea Chen maintained the momentum the team’s sabreists built by going 11-1 across the semifinal and finals.

“We had much more energy, we had more focus,” Chen said. “We didn’t really expect to win, but we tried super hard and that gave us the motivation to win.”

Perhaps some of the team’s success can be attributed to a change in the way Moon had his teams practice this week. The boys team fenced the girls team, with handicaps in place to keep it competitive. It’s something Moon said he hasn’t tried previously but believes paid dividends Saturday.

“They handled pressure and knew what it was like to fight for every single touch, and we knew they’d have to fight for every single touch against Great Neck South,” Moon said.

For Lim, whose twin brother Brandon helped Syosset boys fencing lift a county title shortly before, the accomplishment gets compounded tenfold.

“Having my sister on the team makes me feel like I can win alongside with her,” Brandon Lim said.

“We’ve both been fencing since we were nine,” Alexa Lim said. “It’s really great that we get to work hard together to achieve what we did today.”