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Crossing swords at St. John’s

Crossing swords at St. John’s
Photo by Michael Shain

As collegiate sports go, fencing has 400 or 500 years on football and basketball. But the fine art of thrust and parry does not show its age.

Last weekend, St. John’s University once again hosted an elite invitational tournament at the school’s cavernous Taffner Field House, pitting six of the country’s top 10 fencing schools against each other under one roof.

Harvard, Notre Dame (last year’s NCAA champions), Columbia (champions two years in a row from 2015-16), Penn State (2014 champions) and Ohio State (2012 champions).

Four of the six teams have athletes from Queens on their rosters and most of them have more than one.