“Besides Penn State, UNC was the second big one,” O’Brien said. “It was pretty close, but we pulled it out.”

Harvard ended the day with wins over NYU.

The women’s team was led by Kiefer and freshman epee fencer Nina van Loon, who posted identical 14-1 records.

“On the women’s side we have some very good players, we just don’t have as much depth as the men overall,” Brand said. “But they are very competitive and very spirited.”

The Crimson was able to overcome its lack of depth when senior Alexa Fishman—an epee fencer—competed as a foilist.

“She performed really well,” Kiefer said. “We were really proud of her. She definitely performed better than I think she was expecting.”

Harvard also competed without junior sabre fencer Eric Arzoian, who placed sixth at the Garrett Penn State open at the beginning of November but was forced to sit out this weekend with a wrist injury.

In preparation for January’s meet, the teams will look to build on their strong performances from Saturday.

“I feel good about the rest of the season,” Kiefer said. “We can definitely keep working on our conditioning in terms of getting stronger. I think we can work a little bit more on strategy, but overall I think we are poised to continue doing well.”

The Crimson is confident about its ability to be competitive at Ivy League Championships in early February, especially on the men’s side.

“We are just much deeper overall [on the men’s side] in all three events: sabre, foil, and epee,” Brand said. “In every one of these events we have three or four really good guys, so that really bodes well just because this is what determines who is going to win at the end of the year.”

Brand said that he was happy with the 4-1 result, but that the team needs to continue to improve before its next competition.

“We really have to become much more aggressive overall because our next match is in January against the top schools in the nation in New York,” Brand said. “That’s really going to give us a better indicator of where we stand overall.”