Finally, after a long week of staggered practices, the entire fencing program unites, and their cheers thrum with the passion and excitement of a Friday afternoon. Donning their lustrous lamés and readying their swords, high school fencers begin their one-on-one matches or bouts.

Since the program’s founding in 2006, the number of participating fencers has grown from nine to over 40. Head coach Cesar Morales, who has been with the program since its beginning, hosts practices at his International Fencing Club (IFC) in West Roxbury. Split between JV and varsity, the program has expanded to accommodate boys and girls teams for all three forms of fencing: foil, épée, and sabre, each of which differs in how they’re performed and practiced. Despite their growth, the team is more tight-knit than ever, according to senior and captain of Boys Varsity Foil Maxm Thompson. With this unity, they hope to find success for the rest of the winter season.

Like many other fencers, senior and captain of Girls Varsity Sabre Marie Di Fabbrizio began the sport as an underclassman and stuck with it for the rest of high school. Di Fabbrizio said she’s excited to show her enthusiasm for the sport and advocate for the team in her second season as captain.

According to Di Fabbrizio, in her freshman year, there were only two other female fencers, but this year, there are fifteen.

“I’m very happy to be able to share that space with a lot of girls,” Di Fabbrizio said. “They’re all very sweet—I got really lucky.”

The increased popularity means that not all fencers can practice on the same days, and teams have to split up their schedules. Senior and co-captain of Boys Varsity Sabre Ryan Marantz said that, even when teams split up, not everyone can find space and some have to sit out.

Di Fabbrizio said the issue of moving away from IFC and finding a new practice venue boils down to the equipment they use during training. Lamés, or metallic jackets used to electrically sense when a blade touches a fencer, aren’t easy to transport yet are key to both sabre and foil forms of fencing.

Thompson said the program, in response to the lack of a large training space at which all teams can practice, is trying to ramp up other ways of building stronger bonds between the teams that might not practice together, such as spirit days.

“We really want to get people to know each other better, and we want to do bonding events,” Thompson said. “They had a girls bonding event in December, and we want to do a guys one and maybe spirit days to have more interaction between the teams.”

On a deeper level, the captains have also been finding unity in their advocacy. The student-athlete life poses unique challenges for fencing competitions, of which there are two types: dual and multi-meets. Dual meets involve two competing schools, and multi-meets mean anything greater.

Di Fabbrizio said dual meets are often too time-consuming; fencers are brought along to a several-hour-long meet and only fence for a few minutes at a time. She and the other captains have been discussing moving towards more multi-meets over dual ones in the future, an idea that they have brought to the athletics department.

“I feel like the captains have really been united this year on this issue,” Di Fabbrizio said. “We’ve all gone to them multiple times, sometimes all at once. Maybe it’s a little intimidating with the six of us.”

In his nearly three decades of coaching, Morales has been the Warriors coach for nineteen years. His steadfast and no-nonsense attitude has played a massive role in the program’s immense growth and success, and he hopes his fencers can find guidance in other parts of their lives from the lessons fencing has taught them.

“It’s amazing because we show the kids how many possible things they can learn from fencing,” Morales said. “How to control their emotions, how to solve problems in difficult situations, when they’re under stress, how to stay calm—things they can transfer to whatever they’re doing, not just the sport.”