The women's fencing team didn't end the season with a perfect record, but the Lady Lions closed it with an impressive 9-7 win over Columbia.

They lost to Temple Saturday morning in an emotional, tight match that ended in a fence-off. They were tied 8-8 in bouts, meaning number of touches decided the victory. But they were tied 62-62 in touches, so Lisa Posthumus and Temple's Tara Collins were chosen to fenced off.

The fence-off didn't surprise the Lady Lions. They counted the touches while Janet Rossman fenced and discovered that she needed to win, 5-3, for the team to win outright. Rossman, however, won, 5-4.

"It had been close the whole time so we knew that we had to win by 5-3," Posthumus said.

In the fence-off, Posthumus lost 5-2 to give the overall win to Temple. The loss, however, doesn't count as a loss for NCAA qualifications.

"We know we lost and they know they won, but it's really considered a tie so it doesn't hurt our record too much," Posthumus said.

Once they were finished with Temple, the Lady Lions had to fight Columbia. Spirits weren't peaking after the morning loss, and they weren't too excited about fencing another match.

"When we lost to Temple it was a real letdown, but Coach (Emmanuil Kaidanov) talked to us and we had to get ourselves together and fence Columbia clear of mind," Katie Kowalski said. "That's all we could do."

They went into the match with three quick wins before finally losing a bout to Columbia. The Columbia women caught up and the Lady Lions went neck and neck with them until they finally fell behind, 7-6. The next bout was crucial to the outcome.

The first team to reach nine wins takes the match, so allowing their opponents to come within one of the victory would put the Lady Lions at a disadvantage.

They not only didn't allow that win, but they didn't allow another one at all, finishing off Columbia, 9-7.

"It was exhausting, but we couldn't really be tired after we beat Columbia, we were so up," Posthumus said.