This winter season, at West Milford High School, senior Blake Ballin, age 17, is consumed with the widely unrecognized sport of fencing. A sport where precision and accuracy are everything, Ballin describes the sport as a “gentlemen’s game [where] respect of your opponent and the director is very important.”  The director is the judge of the match.  He/she calls the winner of each point, where the winner of five points wins the bout.  For a school to win an entire match, it must collectively win 14 bouts before the other team.  This year West Milford has a record of 5-4 with Ballin contributing 31 bout wins.  That is almost three whole matches he has won just by himself.  Besides his outstanding winning record, Ballin is also the overall captain of the team this year.

Ballin fences the weapon of foil; the other two weapons are sabre, and epee.  Ballin was foil captain last year and competed in the State Tournament.  Ballin states, “Fencing is not something you can just start doing and succeed, it takes hours upon hours of practice and lessons before you begin to get an understanding of the sport and before you can use that knowledge and apply it to your own personal style.”  His personal style seems to be winning.  Last year Ballin finished second in the state individuals as a junior and helped his foil squad to an 11^th place finish overall in the state.  The foil team has again qualified for states again this year and plan to do better than last year.

Like many good competitors, Ballin picked up the sport almost by accident. He tried out for the team his freshman year with no prior experience and made the team.  Since he has practiced in thousands of bouts with over 100 wins outside of school.  He is currently a ranked member of the “NJFA (New Jersey Fencing Alliance),” where he has been trained by many nationally ranked fencers, many of whom were part of the Olympic fencing squad.  Ballin wishes that people wouldn’t “judge fencing as quickly as they do.”  He explains “how much fun the sport actually is.”

Besides fencing, Ballin was also on the West Milford Varsity Soccer team this fall, and loves to play in his spare time.  He also is an engaged student at West Milford High, his favorite class being “Mr. Matloszs’ AP US History 2 class.”  Although this was a tough class, he enjoyed it very much.  Next fall Ballin plans to attend college and maybe continuing his fencing career.  He “encourage[s] any student looking to play a winter sport to try out for the team.”  Good luck in States, fence hard!