In the quiet hours a day before the ACC Fencing Championships, before scores of supporters would turn out en masse to see an coming-of-age tour de force from the women’s team writ large and its local prodigy, Notre Dame fencing coach Gia Kvaratskhelia and burgeoning sophomore star foilist JoJo Conway unfolded an championship foundation.
At Kvaratskhelia’s prodding, Conway pierced the surface of her passion for the sport in a Friday session.
She screamed. She yelled. She worked.
And as the next 48 hours unfolded inside Notre Dame’s Joyce Center, Conway uncorked a superlative performance that helped lift ND to a sudden-death overtime victory for the ACC’s women’s fencing championship – the program’s third-straight crown — and saw the indomitable Conway emerge as unquestioned Women’s Most Valuable Fencer.
“I remember being quite nervous, actually,” said Conway, a Mishawaka, Indiana, native and John Adams High School graduate. “I talked to Gia about it on Friday, and I’d said I was kind of nervous. We had a really intense private lesson that day, and I felt a little bit better. I was nervous, but I wanted to give it my all no matter what and I’d be fine.
“It was more so a mentally intense rather than physically intense lesson. Basically during competitions, we scream if we score a point; Gia wanted me to recreate that during the lesson, so to recreate the scream as if I was in the midst of super-intense competition. It honestly was one of the hardest things; it took me four or five times until I actually produced the same intense scream.”
Yet, with the team’s overall ACC crown and her own ACC MVP performance, Conway derives belief in the evidentiary process.
“I think it gave me the confidence that even when things are difficult or a bout is not going my way,” Conway said, “so many factors you can’t control and even if things are difficult during a bout, I can still pull through.
“I think consistency is important for training for me and how I set myself up for success, so even when it kind of hurts or I don’t want to, I still go in and get something done.”
And so it is Tuesday, that ACC Championship masterpiece scarcely 48 hours in the rearview, and Kvaratskhelia sees a familiar sight: Conway and her teammates are back to work, honing skills, studying nuances in their approach and, most importantly, continuing their quest for a national championship with the NCAA Fencing Championships to unfold later this month.
“Guess what? JoJo showed up and had a training session and went back to normal,” Kvaratskhelia said of the response to the conference crown.
“I think it’s a reflection of everything else in her life, her daily behavior, the way she handles school; she traveled 9 out of 11 weekends in one stretch, five of them international travels to include Wednesday departure and a Monday return to campus. Yet she has a really high GPA, around 3.7. Handling that kind of stress and being able to manage both speaks of her emotional stability and that’s reflected in her fencing.
“We knew she was really talented, superbly talented, but she just picks up information a lot quicker than many athletes and retains the information and excels. It’s the combination of all of those that really culminates in her performance.”
What Kvaratskhelia gleans from the Fighting Irish women’s fencing team’s ACC title barrage lends optimism that Notre Dame can further burnish its bona fides as collegiate fencing’s consummate program without peer.
There already are five NCAA team fencing championships; the current run comprises a suffocating three-peat.
With its handling of the rigors of the day-long ACC individuals and the sudden-death overtime bouts for the team crown, Notre Dame is tracking for more postseason excellence.
“The ACC individual event will be the closest format to the NCAAs, so putting kids to that gives us kind of the information to be successful for when it really, really matters,” said Kvaratskhelia, a three-time national fencing coach of the year, tutor of 54 All-Americans and 20 NCAA individual national champions. “We can harvest that information and make final decisions, who travels and can compete for NCAA Championships in case they qualify. One advantage we have with ACCs is because of their close proximity to the NCAA Championships (roughly 2 weeks apart).
“The stress management, where we are with certain individuals, where they are physically and mentally. Those were long days, 15 matches, competing and physically holding up. They can tactically encompass every aspect of the competition.”
Conway’s repertoire is evolving as a microcosm of the program’s excellence. She is continually ascending, with Kvaratskhelia noting the second-year’s climb from approximately 30th in the national rankings to surge inside the top 10 at No. 6.
All things believed possible for Conway, etching her name on the national fencing circuits since first launching into the sport “around 7 or 8 years old,” have percolated closer to fruition in this campaign. In addition to her ascendance in the rankings, she is fortifying her skills through international experiences in Canada, Egypt, Thailand, Germany and Croatia, among other outposts.
Kvaratskhelia notes a spot on the prestigious United States Under-20 National Team is within the realm, but he’s not about to project any limits or deviate from the program’s one-day-at-a-time approach.
“So, JoJo, to be honest with you, was a very strong athlete but this year is having a breakout season,” Kvaratskhelia said. “She’s progressively been getting better every step of the way. We knew she would do well but couldn’t say of that magnitude. She didn’t drop a match the entire two days of the ACC. It’s great to see truly with the work she’s put in coming to fruition. She’s been so, so consistently focused and never let her concentration walk away from her.
“That doesn’t happen very often. I truly believe it’s something special and what we witnessed was very special.”
That Conway, Kvaratskhelia explains, embodies the essence of the Notre Dame student-athlete only heightens the joy.
“JoJo is absolutely a gift, as a human, as a young lady who appreciates everyone every day,” he said. “She leads with kindness and helps make our existence here worthwhile. She’s an inspiration to us to get work with and grow with them. Someone with that character, great in human spirit, is bottled up in that kid
“She really is the quintessential Notre Dame athlete who truly cares more about others than herself.”
Conway and the Notre Dame fencing team compete for their fourth straight national championship this upcoming weekend in Columbus from Thursday, March 21 through Sunday, March 24.