March 22, 2001
Irish men look to make up 12-point deficit on St. John's before women's teams
close
four-day event.
St. John's holds a 12-point margin on Notre Dame following Thursday's first
day of action at the
NCAA Combined Men's and Women's Fencing Championship, at the University of
Wisconsin
Parkside's Petretti Fieldhouse.
Thursday's action concluded with four rounds of men's epee competition, with
the morning rounds
featuring the men's sabre and foil bouts. The men conclude with three rounds
per weapon on
Friday, with the women then taking center stage on Saturday and Sunday.
St. John's and Notre Dame were the only entrants to qualify the maximum 12
fencers and the Red
Storm won 65 bouts to claim a 12-point cushion on the Irish, who won 53 bouts
on the first day
(out of a possible 81). SJU's potent sabre tandem of Keeth Smart (14-0) and
Ivan Lee (12-2)
combined to win 26 bouts while ND likewise was led by its sabres, with senior
Andrzej Bednarski
(Granger, Ind.) winning 11 of 14 bouts while junior Andre Crompton (Irvington,
N.J.) went 10-4.
Five-time defending NCAA champion Penn State stands five points behind the
Irish, with 48
points, followed by Stanford (43) and Princeton (41).
Thursday's late action saw Irish sophomore Jan Viviani (Haworth, N.J.) match
Alex Roytblat of St.
John's for the fourth-most wins (10) in the epee competition, heading into
Friday's final three
rounds. The top four finishers in each weapon will advance to the semifinals
of the individual
competition (those results do not factor into the team scoring), with ties
broken by ãindicatorsä (or
overall point differential). Roytblat owns a +24 on indicators while Viviani
is +19.
Notre Dame junior Brian Casas (Mishawaka) stands in 17th place following four
rounds of epee
bouts, with six wins (the top 12 finishers earn All-America status, with Casas
just one win out of
12th place heading into Friday's action).
Viviani's more noteworthy wins came versus Roytblat, Ohio State's Alan Jones
and Rutgers'
Yevgeni Niyzov (all 5-4), plus a 5-2 win over Penn State's Adam Wiercioch. He
also dropped
three one-point bouts, losing 5-4 to Casas and OSU's Geoff Kane and 4-3 to
PSU's Daniel
Landgren in overtime.
Casas collected his sixth win on his final bout of the day with a 5-4 decision
over Princeton's
Soren Thompson, who sits atop the epee standings after posting 12 wins on the
first day. Casas
also turned in a 5-4 win over Wiercioch, who match the 11 wins turned in by
Air Force's Weston
Seth Kelsey.
Bednarski and Crompton are poised to join Smart and Lee in a probable
semifinal grouping, with
other contenders including Brown's Paul Friedman (who matched Crompton's 10
wins and is tied
with the Irish junior at +23 indicators) and four fencers with nine wins-most
notably 2000 NCAA
runner-up Jakub Krochmalski of Wayne State. The Irish fencers will face a
challenging second
day that includes bouts vs. St. John's, Wayne State and Columbia.
Irish sophomore Ozren Debic (10-4, Zagreb, Croatia) and Stanford's Felix
Reichling will need to
improve on their current standings (sixth and fifth, respectively) to have any
chance at reprising
their 2000 NCAA title matchup (won by Reichling). The top four positions in
the foil standings
currently belong to Joe Fisher (St. John's) and Columbia's Jed Dupree (both
with 13 wins) and
Penn's Yaron Roth and Penn State's Nontapat Panchan (each with 11 wins).
Debic classmate Forest Walton (Londonberry, N.H.) stands five spots out of
All-America status, in
17th with six wins and -9 on indicators (he is just one win out of 12th).
