Teens of Bay Area

Lunging toward her opponent, Pinewood High School senior Sophia Mann reaches to land her attack. Hundreds of eyes are watching — after all, it’s the finals strip of the 2025 Summer Nationals.

But it took her ten years to get here. When she was seven, among rows of metal strips with thrilling bouts, Sophia picked up a sword for the first time at The Fencing Center in San Jose.

“[At] the very first fencing practice, 2nd grader Sophia was hypnotized. Fencing looked so cool that she would not leave,” Sophia’s mom said. “She couldn’t suit up by herself, but simply had some equipment on and was overjoyed. I also remember during the initial bouting: she just stood there, with her beebee sword, and would not move. I urged her to fight, her response was ‘Fighting is not good. I don’t fight!’”

She initially started fencing foil (a fencing discipline where points can only be scored using the tip of the blade). After a year, she switched to sabre for its faster-paced matches. Touches in saber can be scored with the entire blade and points are given by right-of-way, which is determined by the referee. Through the years, Sophia has spent hours at the fencing club practicing footwork, doing bladework drills and refining her style.

“Anybody that shows up and works hard can be unpredictable for their success,” said Coach David, Sophia’s coach of three years. “But Sophia has another level of tenacity. Past that, you could see that it was going to work into some real results later on.”

Since 2018, Sophia has been traveling to states across the United States for competitions, also competing in a Canada Cup in Vancouver where she won first place in Cadet Women’s Sabre.

“I’ve seen moments when Sophia fenced tight bouts, for medals, where you could see that her concentration was slipping and she’d start to lose the bout, but she has the ability to stop and recenter in these tense moments,” David said. “That’s a skill that many people don’t have.”
Some of her best results include a bronze medal at the 2024 BladeRunner tournament hosted at UCSD, a silver medal at the 2025 USA Fencing National Championships and July Challenge in the Division I-A category out of 107 fencers, and a medal at the 2026 Junior Olympics.

This past summer, her dedication got her to the National Training Center in Tokyo, where she trained with Japanese coach Hiroshi Hashimoto. Sophia trained with fencers from around the world and had the opportunity to fence the Japanese national team.

Despite her success, Sophia has had her fair share of setbacks in fencing.

“One of the challenges I faced was when I didn’t make the national team, because that was one of my goals for the season,” Sophia said. “I was really bummed out about that. Especially when my mom mistakenly told me that I made it, and I actually went down in the rankings.”

Sophia attributes part of her success to the support she received from coaches through the years: her foil coaches, Coach Stuart, David, George, Stefano and now Coaches Michael Kim and Tamara Pochekutova.

“I think I’ve learned a lot of little tricks from every coach,” Sophia said. “Coach Stuart got me into sabre and taught me all the basics… My coaches at Cardinal, David, George, they’ve taught me little tricks, cool combinations, and second intention… Stefano helped me fix a lot of technical things and also helped me mentally as well.”

In addition, her parents, especially her mother, have been of unwavering support. 

“Every tournament I go to, she’s there supporting me, yelling at me, recording all my bouts…” Sophia said. “Even though sometimes we fight, in the long run, I know she just wants the best for me. I really appreciate that and she pushes me to be a better person.”

In the future, Sophia would like to make the national team for Junior World Cups, and possibly Senior World Cups. She has considered fencing for Canada because there are more opportunities to fence at international competitions, although she would like to represent the U.S. as well.

To those interested in picking up fencing, Sophia says, “I would say, if you want to do fencing, definitely get the basics right first. Make sure you’re bending your knees in your en garde position. But most importantly, make sure that you enjoy what you’re doing. At least, like, some aspect of it because… it’s pretty hard to be good at something you’re really miserable doing.”