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Claire Brandow gave up basketball to
pursue fencing.
She recently won the NJSIAA state epée championship. |
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BY MATTHEW KIRDAHY
STAFF WRITER
She's an athletic and agile 5-foot-10 girl who handles a blade
like few others in fencing. But with that much height, why not basketball?
"I gave up basketball for fencing," said Claire Brandow of Ocean
Township, who recently won the NJSIAA fencing championship in epée. "When I
started fencing, my dad didn't like the idea. He always had visions of me being
this great basketball player."
Her dad, Robert, also had concerns stemming from elsewhere when
his daughter started fencing in middle school.
"I really liked fencing at first but he didn't want me to start
because he thought it would be dangerous," she said.
But her intentions were not to defy her parents' concerns or to
abandon basketball because she didn't like it. She was just in love with
fencing.
"I enjoy the individual aspect of fencing," Brandow said.
"You're just responsible for yourself."
In her case, that's exactly right. She is the sole member of the
Ocean Township High School fencing team, if you want to call it that. She
competed in the state tournament as a representative of the school, which gave
her a varsity letter for fencing as a freshman.
Brandow is a senior now, fencing the past eight years and has
aspirations of competing in college and possibly at the Olympic level.
She's tossing around the idea of attending either the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill or Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass.
Brandow will wield a sword for either college, at least she'd better.
"Both schools have fencing," Brandow said. "And I think that if
I didn't fence in college my parents would say, "What did we spend all this
money for?' "
She speaks in jest of course, because Brandow has come too far
to throw all the time she has devoted to the sport away.
Brandow fences two to three times each week under instructor
Yakov Danilenko at Madeo Fencing Club in Bernardsville. The studio is at least
an hour drive from her hometown.
"You just have to keep going with it," Brandow said. "I fence
two or three days a week and on most weekends. It's a big dedication, especially
living where I do, or at least where I travel."
Brandow competed in her first NJSIAA tournament last year and
placed third.
"Last year was the only other year I competed in it," she said.
"I was kind of hoping to win it this year and I did."
While she is the only competitive fencer at Ocean, she has been
attending these competitions with Ocean baseball coach Louis "Del" Dal Pra and
football coach Don Klein.
"They are so nice and so enthusiastic, just great guys to have
around," Brandow said. Based on his coaching experience, Dal Pra knows what it's
like at big competitions. He realizes that people with the passion for a sport
as uncommon as fencing deserve the support more conventional sports, such as
baseball, receive.
"She's a great kid," Dal Pra said. "She works very hard and we
don't have a varsity team, but she works as hard as any varsity athlete. Her
taking first place doesn't really surprise me.
"Claire is a very competitive person and my only wish is that we
had a varsity team for her to compete here with in these last four years. She's
an inspiration one of the best athletes we have in the school."
Matthew Kirdahy: (732) 643-4032 or
mkirdahy@app.com
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