This Saturday, the women’s fencing team will travel to Waltham, Mass., to compete in the Brandeis Invitational. It will be the Red’s first competition since the Nov. 15 Vassar Invitational. Under head coach Iryna Dolgikh, the Red hopes to continue its momentum from recent successes at the Temple Open, and especially Vassar, where the team finished the day 8-0. The team will face off against several teams it faced in the 2008-09 season, including Boston College, MIT, Brandeis and St. John’s University.

“Last year we lost to many of these teams, but this year I’m sure we will definitely improve our results,” Dolgikh said.

Although the Red dropped each of its matches last year at Brandeis, it expects improvement as a team due to its experience at Temple and Vassar, and also because of its improvement in the sabre weapon. Fight club: Last season the Red dropped each of its matches against Brandeis, but hopes to reverse that trend this Saturday.

Freshmen Beverly Yang and Audrey Speer have led the sabre team so far this year; Yang finished with an 18-1 record while Speer was 19-2 at the Vassar Invitational. Last year at the Brandeis Invitational, the sabre team lost each of its matches by a considerable margin.

“For sabre, the expectations this year were higher … we did really well at Vassar, so we’re hoping to pull a record that’s just as good, if not better,” Yang said.

Dolgikh also expects the foil squad to continue its consistently strong performance. Last year, while the Red as a whole team lost each match, the foil squad individually won each of its matches at Brandeis. Sophomore Rebecca Hirschfeld, who finished undefeated at the Vassar Invitational, leads the foil fencers. However, senior Dana Baines, who was 20-1 at Vassar, along with Katie Halpin –– a junior sabre –– will not be traveling with the team for personal reasons.

“We’re just trying to keep up the momentum from the past two competitions since we did really well,” Hirschfeld said.

The epee squad performed nearly as well as the foil squad at Brandeis last year, finishing with just one loss against St. John’s. At Vassar, seniors Tasha Hall, Catherine Thompson and Allie Dietrich handled their opponents with ease; Hall finished with one loss, Dietrich had three and Thompson ended with two.

While the Red expects each of its opponents on Saturday to be a worthy test, Dolgikh will be paying particular attention to the team’s bouts against St. John’s.

According to Dolgikh, “St. Johns is usually a top-six team in NCAA nationals. Every year they’re there. … It will be tough to fight them.”

The Brandeis Invitational will be the Red’s last competition before Winter Break and the beginning of a two-month hiatus for the team; the Red will not fence again as a team until the Ivy Championships and Junior Olympics in February.

But over Break, the team will not be idle.

“We got a new workout routine for the weight room, and we’ll be coming back a week early to train. … I’m sure that many of us will be going home to our club and training with our professional coaches,” Yang said.

In addition, several members of the team will be traveling to San Jose in January for a national competition.

It appears that the Red will return for the second half of the season in mid-stride, ready to replicate its success so far this season.