The Mosslands School Fencing Tournament, the Tour Escrimé took place over the three weeks before October half term. There were thirty three entrants to the competition all striving to take home the gold and get their name on the trophy. There were many experienced competitors from last year and quite a few novices from all age groups, including some excellent beginners from year seven (notably Adam Walker and Callum Taylor). The competition was run in the Main Hall and saw some fantastic fights from the very first round. The competition followed the same format as last year with all contestants fighting in a round of pools matches that gave them a ranking to go into the direct elimination rounds afterwards. Last years runner up Dale Taylor was top seed and the eventual winner Adam Robinson seeded tenth. 

The direct elimination began with some fantastic matches with particularly good contests between Will Bruce and Matthew Swindles, Will winning through 15-13 and Sean Naylor vs San Cuthbert 15-14 to Naylor. All of the favourites progressed through to the last 16 where James Orwin and Charlie Campbell (year 9) produced upsets knocking out the number two seed Jake Mills and the top seeded Dale Taylor in great displays of fencing. After further elimination matches the final four were left as Nathan Jones, Elliott Kenny, Adam Robinson and Ahmed Wilkinson. All four of these are experienced fencers with Ahmed and Adam both having been to open competitions and Elliott and Nathan training regularly at Wirral Fencing club. After two good matches we had the final set as Adam Robinson vs Elliott Kenny. 

The match started slowly with both fencers taking their time to assess each other. Elliott took an early lead and found himself 5-2 ahead at the first break. Adam pulled it back to 7-7 but by the second break was 10-8 down. The final period was very tense with good exchanges between the two. Elliott pulled ahead to 14-10 and needing only one more hit to win for the second year running seemed to be well in control. However, Adam was not going to give in and fought back to make it 14-14. The final hit went on for some considerable time with neither fencer wanting to make any mistakes. In the final battle it was Adam who secured the final hit and took the title of School Fencing Champion. A big thank you to all of the boys for producing such a great competition, and to Mrs. Lee who awarded the trophy to an ecstatic Adam.

More competitions to come!