FORTUNE FENCING · PRE-SUMMER-NATIONALS REPORT

Ranked #34 of 548 U.S. épée clubs. 32 podiums. 13 new ratings. One qualification deadline on May 6, and one national championship waiting in Portland. Here’s where Fortune stands.

Source: FencingTracker.com strength rankings, verified April 16, 2026.

It is April 16, 2026. Summer Nationals begin in 72 days at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland. The qualification deadline — the moment when every regional and national point standing freezes and USA Fencing draws its lines — is May 6, 2026. That’s 20 days from today.

Between now and then, exactly one national-tier opportunity remains: the April NAC in Richmond, Virginia (April 24–27). After that, regional and state events can still nudge standings, but the big-points window is closing fast. Every Fortune fencer who is near a qualification threshold — or a rating promotion — has to treat these three weeks as the race they’ve been training for all year.

Fortune enters this stretch in a strong position. Our 2025/26 season has produced 14 gold medals, 32 total podiums, 13 new USA Fencing letter ratings, and 111 top-16 finishes across 289 individual tournament starts. The club ranks #34 nationally on FencingTracker’s strength leaderboard — ahead of 514 U.S. épée clubs and within a cluster where only 8 strength points separate rank #31 from rank #37.

“The top 30 is mathematically reachable. One more C-rating, or two more D-ratings, closes the gap. This is not a distant aspiration. It is a deliverable.”

The Road to Portland

The last 72 days of the 2025/26 season

• April 24–27 — April NAC, Richmond VA: The last national-points event before qualification freezes.
• May 6 — Qualification deadline: The moment the RPS and NRPS freeze for Summer Nationals.
• June 5–7 — Junior/Cadet SJCC, Las Vegas: Final sharpening opportunity before Portland.
• June 27 – July 6 — Summer Nationals, Portland OR: Ten days. The largest fencing tournament in the world.

July Challenge (Cadet, Junior, Div I). Every event Fortune Fields is a points contributor for next season’s rank.

Who’s Heading to Portland

Final qualification math will not settle until May 6. But based on results already posted — gold medals, rating events, top-8 finishes at NACs and Super Regionals — the Fortune delegation to Portland is shaping up as one of the strongest in club history.

That is twelve named fencers with a realistic path to Portland — and that count excludes the additional Fortune fencers likely to qualify through Division II, Division III, or divisional-qualifier pathways. Across Youth, Cadet, Junior, Veteran, and Veteran-Age categories, Fortune is positioned to send double-digit athletes across at least five age brackets. That breadth matters. A club’s Summer Nationals showing isn’t about one hero; it’s about how many strips you’re active on over the ten days.

The Podium Leaders Carrying Momentum

Allison Yip

Ten podium finishes, five of them gold, and — the biggest line on her record — two B-ratings in a single season. She earned a B25 in Cadet Women’s Epee at the November NAC and a B26 in Y14 Women’s Epee at our own Fortune RYC/RJCC in March. Two B-ratings in one season is rare air. She competes in Richmond and Portland as one of the top U14/U17 female epeeists in the country.

Isabelle Wong

Owns Y10 Women’s Epee in our region: four RYC/SYC golds (Cascade Clash, Nick Itkin Cup, Mary Rafanelli, Sword in the Stone) plus silver at Austin and 3rd at Little Musketeers. Eleven top-8 finishes. She’ll go into Portland in Y10 as a seeded favorite and has the results to compete in Y12 as well.

Matthew Hwang

Has been Fortune’s most versatile male fencer this season. Three golds across three different age categories (Y12, Y14, plus a bronze in Cadet) plus two ratings (D25 and C26). His game scales up; when he moves into Cadet Men’s Epee at Portland, he will not be a stretch entry.

John Li

The newest name on the podium watch list — two Y10 Men’s Epee golds in successive months (Mary Rafanelli and Sword in the Stone). In Y10 at Summer Nationals, that kind of momentum produces seeding and confidence. He is a real contender for a national medal.

Lucas Parra

The workhorse: 27 starts this season, four ratings earned across four different age categories (E25, D25, D26, C26). His April 10 C26 at the Precision Invitational means he enters Portland fresh off a rating event. He’ll compete in Y14, Cadet, and Junior — three categories, three shots at points

Beyond these five, Bryan Lin has been quietly accumulating ratings (two in March alone — D26 and E26), Kyle Wong has a silver and five top-8s, Declan Denison is a top-5 regular at Junior Men’s Epee, and the Y10 Women’s cohort behind Isabelle Wong — Elizabeth Wang, Kayleigh Wu, Ariel Liang — is putting up top-20 finishes consistently, which means they’ll be competitive in Y10 at Portland.

Fortune’s Senior Statesman: James Gallivan, Age 82

If Allison Yip is the story of Fortune’s present, James Gallivan is the story of what Fortune is. At 82 years old, he is competing at the highest national level in saber and epee in the Vet 80+ age category — and he is winning medals doing it.

At Summer Nationals 2025 in Minneapolis, Gallivan earned bronze in Vet 80+ Men’s Saber. At February NAC 2026 in Cleveland, he did it again — another bronze in Vet 80+ Men’s Saber, plus a 7th-place finish in Vet 80+ Men’s Epee. He also finished 7th in Vet 80+ Men’s Epee at Summer Nationals 2025. He competes across two weapons. He competes across age brackets — taking 11th in Vet 70+ Men’s Saber at the Fortune ROC last September, voluntarily aging up into a more competitive pool.

This is what a full-life fencing club looks like. Fortune is not a youth factory that happens to have a few adults hanging around the edges. It is a program where a 10-year-old can win her first RYC gold on the same weekend her 82-year-old clubmate is preparing for a national bronze. Gallivan will almost certainly qualify for Portland. When he steps on the strip, he represents the deepest bench Fortune can field — the one that measures years, not just fencers.

The rest of the Vet squad is similarly credentialed: Jacquie Parker earned her E26 at BBFC ROC/RJC in February and placed 13th in Vet 40-49 Women’s Epee at Summer Nationals 2025. Daryl Taylor placed 9th in Vet 70+ Men’s Epee at February NAC and 12th at Summer Nationals 2025. David Jensen hit 7th in Vet 60-69 Men’s Epee at Summer Nationals 2025 and 8th in Vet Men’s Epee at BBFC ROC. These are not peripheral results. The Vet cohort is a structural contributor to Fortune’s national standing.

The Numbers We Bring to Portland

289 individual starts. 32 podiums. 58 top-8 finishes. 111 top-16 finishes. Better than one in three Fortune entries this season reached the final 16 of their event — a measure of both depth and consistency that few clubs outside the top 15 match.

More importantly, the 13 new ratings earned this season are the raw fuel for next season’s strength ranking. Every letter rating is a strength-point contribution: B is worth 8, C is worth 5, D is worth 4, E is worth 3. Fortune’s rating mix this year breaks down as two B-ratings (Yip ×2), three C-ratings (Yip, Hwang, Parra), five D-ratings (Yip, Hwang, Parra, Parra, Lin), and three E-ratings (Parra, Parker, Lin). That’s 46 strength-point equivalents earned this season alone.

Fourteen Golds, Eight Months

Consistency — the Momentum We’re Riding In

Gold medals and top-8 finishes by month, 2025/26 season

Fortune has produced a gold medal in eight of the last nine months. The club has never dropped below four top-8 finishes in any calendar month of the season. January was the peak — 10 top-8s and 3 golds, driven by the Mary Rafanelli weekend where three Fortune fencers took gold in their primary events. March was another surge: two golds, eight top-8s, two ratings (including Yip’s second B-rating).

That steady month-over-month production is not an accident. It’s the signature of a program with a training floor, not just a ceiling. Fortune fencers show up every weekend expecting to place; that expectation is what separates clubs that briefly spike from clubs that climb and hold.

What Summer Nationals Does for the Club

Fortune’s 216 strength points sit in a cluster where two strength points separate us from rank #33, four points separate us from #31, and just eight points span the full range from #31 through #37. That’s the landscape we’re competing inside.

A strong Summer Nationals — even a handful of new ratings across Y14, Cadet, Junior, and Vet events — can reshape that neighborhood entirely. A single new C-rating (5 strength points) moves Fortune past #31. Two new D-ratings (8 strength points) would put the club inside the top 30. Allison Yip is one B-rating promotion from an A (which is worth a full 15 strength points). Lucas Parra’s C26 means he could push for a B at Junior events in Portland. Matthew Hwang’s C26 positions him similarly.

Portland is the single most rating-dense event on the USA Fencing calendar. Summer Nationals historically contribute more ratings to a given club than any other tournament. The fields are the largest of the year; the competition pools are deepest; the opportunities to earn a first E, promote a D to a C, or grind out a career-first B are all stacked in one building across ten days.

What We Need Between Now and July 6

Three priorities for the next 72 days, in order:

• Lock in qualifications by May 6. April NAC in Richmond is the final national-tier opportunity. Anyone on a qualification bubble — particularly in Cadet, Junior, and Division II — should be prepared to push there.
• Defend existing ratings. Ratings expire. Yip’s B-ratings, Hwang’s and Parra’s C-ratings, and the five D-ratings earned this year all need to be defended — ideally re-earned or promoted — at Portland.
• Convert top-16 finishes into top-8 finishes. Fortune produced 111 top-16 results this season but only 58 top-8s. Closing that gap — winning one more DE bout per tournament — is where rating events live. That is where #34 becomes #30.

The Bottom Line

Fortune enters the final stretch of 2025/26 as a top-6% épée club nationally, with the depth, the ratings trajectory, and the Summer Nationals pipeline to legitimately contest the top 30 by season’s end. Twelve named fencers are positioned to qualify for Portland; several more are within reach via divisional pathways. The Vet program — anchored by an 82-year-old who keeps medaling — is a structural asset, not a sentimental one. The Youth cohort has two gold-medal machines (Yip, Wong) and a rising group of Y10 and Y12 competitors behind them.

Portland in July will be the largest Fortune delegation ever to travel to a Summer Nationals. It will be the event that tells us whether #34 was the ceiling of 2025/26 — or the floor of what’s next.

—  SEE YOU IN PORTLAND  —

Data sources: FencingTracker.com club rankings and results, USA Fencing tournament records. Compiled April 16, 2026.