Tough going early, improvement late — but not quite enough to bring back Junior Olympic status.
For Northwestern freshman walk-on epeeist Gabby Aiuto, the Junior Olympics qualifier at Patten Gymnasium on Saturday was a microcosm of her fencing struggles since she injured her knee last January.
Aiuto, who competed in the Junior Olympics in 2002 and 2003, overcame a 1-5 record in pool play to come within one touch of going to the vaunted national event in Arlington, Texas, on Feb. 18-21. But she couldn’t come up with the deciding touch.
“I really, really wanted to qualify today, ” Aiuto said.
Aiuto was one of three Wildcats fencing Saturday. Freshman Rachel Kuck finished last in under-20 women’s epee — in her first fencing competition ever. Freshman Gina Annunziato, the favorite in her event, won the under-20 women’s sabre.
But Aiuto wasn’t fencing around this time last year.
After suffering a skiing injury, Aiuto was sidelined for six weeks. She came back to complete her final high school fencing season, but then took more time off for rehab.
She’s been struggling ever since.
“I haven’t been getting back into my stride,” she said. “My confidence has been kind of down.
“I think, physically, (I’ve recovered). I think, mentally, I still have some confidence issues that I need to work through.”
NU coach Laurie Schiller he’s been focusing on boosting Aiuto’s morale.
“[We’ve] talked about the need to set small goals,” he said. “What she has to think about doing for the rest of the season is … not try to get it all back at once, but work at (it) bit by bit and get some confidence that way.”
This troubled her early Saturday.
“At the beginning of the day, I was in … a bad mood, a negative mindset,” Aiuto said. “And then, after that … I had to be like, ‘You need to sit down. You need to focus. You can do this. You can’t be so negative because if you think you’re going to lose, you’re going to lose. You have to stay positive.'”
And she did. Brushing off her poor performance in pool play, she breezed through the first round and took a 10-5 lead in the second round, where a win would have earned a spot in the top-four and a trip to Texas. But her opponent quickly got back into the bout, and forced a 14-14 tie going into extra time.
Aiuto went on the attack, but she was denied.
“When it’s 14-14, it can go either way,” she said. “Unfortunately it didn’t go my way.”
Aiuto said qualifying “would have (been) a good sign that I’d really recovered and gotten back after my injury.”
She also said she wanted to make it to the Junior Olympics because she likes the event and her sister, a high school freshman in Great Neck, N.Y., qualified.
But even though she isn’t all the way back, Aiuto said overcoming a bad start will bode well for her in the future.
“I think (this match will help me) a lot, because I think it showed that if I really can sit down and I can focus,” she said. “Then I can … do it if I get into the right mindset.”
Reach Patrick Dorsey at [email protected]
