In the biggest moment of the year, with a perfect season and a state championship on the line, the Columbia boys fencing team turned to its biggest stars—and they delivered.

On Tuesday night at Morris Hills High School, the top-seeded Cougar fencing squad edged the second-seeded Bernards boys 15-12, en route to claiming its fourth state championship and first since 2007.

Holding a 13-12 lead, just one point away from the win, senior co-captain epee fencer Mathew Gibson stepped up and claimed a 5-1 victory over David Howes, ending a late comeback attempt by the Mountaineers.

"If anything I was energized," Gibson said responding to whether he was nervous or not. "I thought it would come down to epee and I just ran with it… It feels awesome. There's no better feeling than to win states in your senior year."

The Cougars entered the third round clinging to a 10-8 lead. Bernards took the first two sabre bouts of the round to tie the score at 10, but got a huge win from Andrew Kelly over Jon Marcus in the final sabre bout to give the Cougars an 11-10 lead.

"I actually had this called right to the end," said first year Columbia head coach George Janto about the score. "I knew I was OK as long as I had one epee win."

But the Mountaineers would not go quietly and kept clawing back. In the opening foil match of the third round, James Cox picked up a win for Bernards to retie the score. But Brian Kaneshige won easily over Calvin Au 5-1, and then Geoff Marino claimed his third win of the evening with a 5-3 decision over Andrew Perez, giving the local boys a 13-11 lead.

"I'm really excited. I saw a little of it in my freshman year. I was sort of wide-eyed and didn't know what was going on," Marino said. "It feels good to know that every test we've faced, we've passed."

"I thought it was fitting that we did it against Bernards," Janto said, referencing an old rivalry that goes back to his daughter's days at CHS. "They were scrappy and they fought us right to the end."

The Cougars, who trailed only once in the contest, when they were down 1-0, picked up some huge wins in the early rounds to keep the Mountaineers at bay. At the end of the first round, with Bernards threatening to close within a point, epee fencer Evan Accardi edged Chris Maples 5-4 to give the Cougars a 6-3 first round advantage.

At the end of the second round, with Bernards one point behind and threatening to tie the score, Gibson picked up his second win of the day, 5-2, over Jimmy Locatelli, putting the Cougars up 10-8 at the end of two. Gibson also picked up a huge first round comeback win, after falling behind 4-1 against Sam Wagner, tying the score with eight seconds left in regulation and then winning it in overtime.

Kaneshige, Kelly, Marino and Gibson all went 3-0 and thus accounted for 12 of the 14 points needed to win. Columbia's sabre squad finished 4-5, while the foil group led the way with a 6-3 mark. The Cougars were 5-4 in the epee.

The championship concludes the team season for the Cougars and for the rest of the state, with Columbia completing an 18-0 campaign. The boys will now move on to the state squad championships, where the foil and sabre squads will look to add more titles on Saturday at North Hunterdon High School.