The Harvard men's and women's fencing teams opened their respective seasons up with a bang on Saturday, slashing through the competition at the Northeast Fencing Conference, hosted by MIT.

The women completely swept the field, topping UMass, 23-3, Tufts, 22-5, Smith, 23-4, Wellesley, 23-4, MIT, 15-12 and New Hampshire, 21-6. The Engineers, however, prevented the men from being as successful as their female counterparts. MIT beat Harvard, 15-12. However, the Crimson drove through the rest of its competition routing UMass, 24-3, Tufts, 21-6 and UNH, 20-7.

Entering the day, the Crimson, took this opening tournament with a grain of salt as it is an adjustment meet for it. The freshmen, in particular, need to adjust to collegiate rules. Given that, Harvard's overall strong performance was especially encouraging.

"The first meet of the year is always rough," men's co-captain Davin Chew said. "Of course, we were disappointed with the loss to MIT because we could've done better. The loss pointed out the things we still need to work on so that we will be ready when we take on the Ivy powerhouses."

Sophomore Tom Weisman led the way for the men at foil, going 8-0 on the day. Junior Mark Lee (8-1) and Chew (7-1) were also extremely effective. On epee, it was co-captain Eugene Cha that headed the charge, posting an 8-3 record while sophomore Derek Lindbloom did him one better at 9-2.

"Our performance gave us a glimpse of the great potential that we possess as a team," Cha said. "But it also showed us that we need to put in a lot of hard work before our big meets later in the year."

The women's team got a tremendous performance from its foil squad, which went 51-3 on the weekend, including junior Emily Katz going 15-0, freshman Liz Blase going 11-0, junior co-captain Ellen Schulz finishing 17-1, and junior Nicole Jarrett going 8-2.

But the freshmen helped key the overall victories, Shulz said.