The fencing is done for today at the Midwest Regional, with the women's foil and epee bouts concluding minutes ago. Notre Dame's Courtney Hurley defeated her teammate Ewa Nelip in the epee final (15-9), while Ohio's State's Oksana Dmytruk topped Northwestern's Samantha Nemecek in the 12-3 foil final.
Oksana Dmytruk (left)
Dmytruk (the '08 NCAA runner-up) won in the quarterfinals vs. teammate Meredith Baskies (#11 initial seed, #8 in DE) and then posted a semifinal victory over ND's Hayley Reese. Nemecek was a quarterfinal winner against ND's Darcie Malynn (#9/#7) and then advanced past the semifinals with a victory over OSU's Lindsay Knauer. The other quarterfinals included Reese's win over ND teammate Radmilla Sarkisova (#10/#4) and Knauer's victory over ND's Adi Nott – in a marquee bout between the two All-Americans.
Knauser and Reese were to meet in the third-place bout while Nott-Sarkisova was the fifth-place matchup and Malynn was to face Baskies with seventh place on the line.
Hurley earlier had defeated her sister Kelley in the semifinals, while Nelip beat OSU's Julia Tikhanova (who was to face Kelley Hurley in the third-place bout). The fifth-place bout was to feature Northwestern twins Christa and Kayley French, with OSU's Miriam Baranov and ND's Diane Zielinski battling for seventh place. Full results and analysis coming soon.
Courtney Hurley (left)