The Northwestern fencing team made the most of its weekend in New York by earning its first victory over a top-10 team.

The Wildcats won two of three matches on Saturday at the Columbia Duals.

The No. 7 Cats (23-6) defeated No. 9 Yale and Brown, but suffered their lone loss of the weekend to host No. 6 Columbia.

“Columbia turned out to be a lot stronger than I thought,” NU coach Laurie Schiller said.

But for the Cats, it was hard to say what was more satisfying — the win or dinner that evening.

After the duals finished, the Cats drove through the Holland Tunnel to eat dinner at sophomore sabreist Lauren Van Gieson’s house in Wayne, N.J.

Lauren’s parents, Alice and Bill Van Gieson, decorated their home with purple balloons and adorned their dogs with purple bandannas. The Van Giesons treated the hungry fencers to a feast of penne pasta with vodka sauce, shrimp cocktail and steak.

“Thank god we did it the night after we fenced, or no one would have been able to move,” Lauren said. “It’s weird to bring your teammates home because everyone lives all over the place.”

Van Gieson said her team deserved the banquet after a hard weekend’s work. Not even the team’s loss to Columbia disappointed her.

“If you a lose a meet or a couple of bouts, it’s just important to forget about it,” she said. “You can’t go back and change it, so you move on.

“You are expected to pick up your energy and have to do it in a matter of five minutes, and it’s difficult.”

Schiller said the Cats fought hard against Columbia, even though the final tally, 18-9, might not reflect that.

“There were a lot of good bouts, but we lost most of them,” Schiller said.

The NU sabre squad improved its overall record to 25-4 but endured its largest defeat of the season to the Columbia sabre squad, 7-2.

“Columbia is the best sabre team I’ve seen all year,” Schiller said.

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