By Jeff Lipton
It featured Lindsay Lohan, the film's star, fencing. Erica thought that was cool, and from then on her interest in the sport grew.
"We would watch the movie and fast-forward to that part," said Erica, who was a student at William L. Buck Elementary School at the time. "I kept watching it so many times a day."
Now 14, Erica, who is entering 10th grade at Valley Stream South High School, has been invited to compete in the prestigious Empire State Games, known as the mini-Olympics, which are taking place in Westchester County this week. She is competing in the foil, the most popular event in competitive fencing.
The Empire State Games are a multi-sport event for amateur athletes patterned after the Olympics, and are divided into six regions, one of which is Long Island. There is competition in every high school sport except football.
Erica qualified for the Games after finishing first in a recent competition on Long Island. Twelve-year-old Nicole came in second, qualifying as an alternate for the Games.
"When I found out I made it, I was really happy and jumping all around," Erica said. "All my hard work had paid off."
She said she wants to do well in the Games because she is representing Long Island. "There's a lot of pressure, but I believe I'm mentally prepared for it," she said. Last year she tried out for the competition but failed to qualify.
In the foil event, competitors target each other's torsos, and hits are scored only with the point of the blade. Fencers wear metallic vests, and hits are registered by an electric scoring device. Erica said she would probably have to defeat at least 12 girls in her age group to win the gold medal.
She said she has her mother, Ivy, to thank for nurturing her interest in fencing. After her mother saw how Erica was drawn to the sport at age 7, she went online to search for fencing clubs, and enrolled her in the Long Island Fencing Academy.
Erica took up fencing as recreation, avoiding competition in her first year, until she hooked up with a private instructor who entered her in a national tournament in Orlando, Fla., to see how she would stack up against some of the best in her age group around the country. "At that point, I was only fencing a few months, and I came in last," Erica recalled.
At age 9, she enrolled in the Fencer's Club in Manhattan, one of the top fencing schools in the country, where she has rapidly developed her skills over the past five years, she said. She has trained four to five days a week for four hours a day. Under the tutelage of Buckie Leach, a former national women's foil coach who has trained some of the best female fencers in the country, including Olympians, Erica began competing nationally and throughout Canada, and now she plans to start competing internationally in the fall.
"I've gotten so much better during that time," said Erica, whose family has lived on Lois Place in Valley Stream for 10 years. "That club has the best coaches, and it's where the top Olympians train."
Her confidence got a big boost when she took first in her age group in the North Atlantic Championship at Vassar College in April, beating 10 girls. That competition helped prepare her, physically and mentally, for the Empire State Games, where she hopes to bring home a gold or silver medal.
She has come to love the sport because it is both physically and mentally demanding, and top competitors outsmart their opponents the same way champion chess players do. "If your opponent makes a move, you have to figure out what the next move should be," Erica explained. The sport has grown in popularity among girls. When she first started competing, there were a total of perhaps 15 girls in the national competitions. Now there are 130 girls in one category, Erica said. "Hopefully, more will get involved," she added. Since she was in eighth grade, Erica has tried to start a fencing club at school, but she said the Board of Education has been reluctant to help her out. "I would love to represent Valley Stream South, my school, in fencing competitions. That would be great," said Erica, who is an honor roll student.
She said her ultimate goal is to compete in the Olympics. But there's still a long road ahead before that happens, she acknowledged.
"I'm very proud of her," Ivy McKee said of her daughter's being chosen for the Empire State Games. "She has worked very hard, all year round. A lot of sacrifices have been made on her part and our part, too. You have to be committed, and as long as she's willing to do it and she keeps her school grades up, my husband and I are behind her 100 percent."
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