By Mitch Abramson
Earlier in the tournament, Bratton had downed the same girl – Jasjit Bhinder of the Hudson Valley region, 5-3, in a round-robin match – but that was with the girl's father away from the strip, and the cerebral Bratton, who likes to take her time in the methodical epee format, had dismantled her opponent by picking her spots carefully.In the finals, however, Bratton, a 13-year-old who attended Russell Sage Junior High School in Forest Hills and will be a freshman at the Dwight School, could not deflect the thread of noise coming from his direction, nor could she outsmart the play clock, which kept malfunctioning in between touches.With her team trailing 8-3 in team points and just three minutes remaining in her match, Bratton managed to tie Bhinder in points at 5-5, but the New York team lost the overall final, 13-8, to Hudson Valley, a team it had beaten earlier, and New York took the silver medal. Bhinder's father, as it turned out, was an annoyance that Bratton could not discard like she had her previous opponents.”He was just screaming and yelling during the match,” she said. “I had won all my matches before the final, but what he was saying, even though I didn't know what he was saying, was really annoying. After the match, he ran over and picked her up like it was a really big deal.”Though Bratton was boiling like a tea kettle on the inside, she showed no outer signs of discomfort, leaving Byron Igoe, coach of the New York team, to shake his head over her maturity and the bright future that awaits her.”Certain fencers are expressive on the strip, and they strut around and bring attention to themselves,” he said. “Others are very quiet and just do their job. Jillian is like that. She's a very clever fencer, and she doesn't show on the outside how she is feeling. I guess she focuses her energies on fencing. Her family has shown a lot of talent, and that has helped her become very disciplined and accomplished (at so young an age).” Bratton's older brother, Benjamin, is a 19-year-old sophomore fencer at St. John's University. He is also an instructor at The Peter Westbrook Foundation, a school that specializes in teaching inner city kids the art of fencing and which sent four of its pupils to the Summer Olympics in Athens. As a result, school founder Peter Westbrook, a former Olympic bronze medallist, has been the subject of numerous newspaper articles and television specials including on HBO and an appearance on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” that have focused on his difficult upbringing in the projects of Newark, N.J. and how fencing helped him to escape.Jillian, whose sister is a 16-year-old fencer at Dwight, is a student at Westbrook's school, located at the New York Fencers Club in Manhattan.”He's very dedicated and it's a lot of fun to go there,” she said. “It's a very goal-oriented program over there, and I know they sent four people to the Olympics this year. That would definitely be a dream of mine.” Reach reporter Mitch Abramson by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 130.
