Here's an overview of the top Ivy League women's fencers, who will be competing today at Columbia in part-1 of the league's Round-Robin Championship:
• WOMEN'S SABRE – The field is led by the Columbia duo of junior Daria Schneider and sophomore Jackie Jacobson … Schneider won the 2007 NCAA title (she attempted t qualify for the U.S. Olympic team in '08) while Jacobson placed sixth at the '08 NCAAs … the top two finishers in the 2008 Ivy Leage Round Robin – Columbia's Emily Jacobson (Jackie's sister) and Harvard's Alex Weingarden – have moved on, but the younger Jacobson sister tied for the 2rd-best record at that '07 event (14-4), followed by current Penn sophomore Danielle Kamis and Cornell's current senior leader Alex Heiss (12-6) … Brown junior Randy Alevi (12-5) tied for the 5th-most wins at the '07 Ivy League event … Kamis – who earlier this season beat Duke's Becca Ward (the '08 Olympic bronze medalist, who is 56-2 in her college bouts this season) – earned All-America honors with her 10th-place finish at the 2008 NCAAs … Alevi was a 2007 All-American (12th-place NCAA finish) and finished 14th at the '08 NCAAs … Cornell's Heiss is a three-time NCAA participant (13th in '07 and '08, 20th in '06), while Penn's Alexis Baran (14th in '07, 17th in '08) and Cassandra Partyka (23rd in '06, 20th in '07) combine with Kamis to give the Quakers three women's sabreists with NCAA Tournament experience … newcomers to watch in this weapon include Harvard's Caroline Vloka (who won the Penn State Open, in the fall of '08), Columbia's Samantha Roberts (bronze medal at the St. Louis Jr. North American Cup) and Penn's Dominika Franciskowicz (two-time Summer Junior National champion) … it will be interesting to see how the Columbia-Penn women's sabre battle shakes out.
• WOMEN'S FOIL – Harvard's fifth-year senior Emily Cross has returned to college fencing, after helping the U.S. women's foil team win the silver medal at the 2008 Olympics (Cross was the '05 NCAA champ and placed third in '06, before taking two years off from college fencing) … each of the top-four finishes from the 2008 Ivy event are back for more, led by Columbia sophomores Nicole Ross (17-1) and Abby Caparros-Janto (14-4), plus Penn's Ilana Sinkin (14-4) and Harvard's Misha Goldfeder (14-4) … three other returners were 12-6 at this event in '08: Harvard current junior Arielle Pensler, Brown sophomore Francesca Bartholomew and Yale junior Lidia Gocheva … Harvard's women's foil team is loaded with fencers who have competed in the NCAA: Cross, Goldfeder (10th/All-American in '07), Anna Podolsky (15th in '08) and Pensler (18th in '08) … Columbia will counter with its All-America duo of Ross (3rd at '08 NCAAs) and Caparros-Janto (10th), along with veteran Kelsey Finkel (who placed 13th at the '06 NCAAs) … Penn's Sinkin is a three-time NCAA participant and 2008 All-American (9th at NCAAs, also 13th n '07 and 15th in '06) … Cornell's Jessica Tranquada placed 16th at the 2008 NCAAs … a couple newcomers who could make key impacts include Harvard's Shelby MacLeod (4th at Penn State Open, fall '08), along with Penn's Laura Paragano (beat her teammate Sinkin to win the Temple Open).
• WOMEN'S EPEE – This weapon is stacked, with all seven fencers returning who posted 12 or more wins at the 2008 Ivy League Championships: the Columbia trio of sophomore Martyna Urbanowicz (16-2; top finisher), senior Oriana Isaacson (12-6) and junior Tess Finkel (12-6); Yale junior Rebecca Moss (12-3), Princeton senior Jasjit Bhinder (13-5) and junior Chandler Clay (12-6) and Harvard senior Maria Larsson (13-5) … Bhinder (11th in '08) and three-time NCAA participant Larsson (9th in '06, 11th in '07, 13th in '08) both have earned All-America honors … five other current Ivy League women's epeeists have competed in the NCAAs: Finkel (14th in '08, 18th in '07), Moss (20th in '07), Isaacson (21st in '08), and the Cornell duo of Sallie Dietrich and Tasha Hall (22nd and 23rd, respectively, in '08) … Princeton's Susannah Scanlan is an elite newcomer in this event, as a member of the U.S. women's epee team that recently won the Junior World Championship (she also placed third at a Jr. World Cup, in Hungary) … Harvard newcomer Noam Mills participated in the 2008 Olympics (with Israel's national team), while Columbia freshman Neely Brandfield-Harvey took home the bronze at the recent Jr. North American Cup held in St. Louis.