It appears that Notre Dame's Eileen Hassett and/or Sarah Borrmann, along with Ohio State's Margarita Tschomakova, have clinched spots among the Midwest Region's five allocated spots for the NCAA Championships. Each of those fencers – plus ND freshman Beatriz Almeida – have advanced to the regional semfinals.
Hassett entered as the #1 seed, again was #1 entering the 16-fencer direct-elimination, and recently posted a quarterfinal win over OSU's Emily Cheng (#5 initial seed/#8 DE seed). She will fence in the semifinals versus Tschomakova (#4 seed, initially and in DE), who topped ND veteran Ashley Serrette in the quarters.
Borrmann (#3 initial seed/#2 in DE) advanced to the semifinals by virtue of a quarterfinal win over Northwestern's Whitney White, the #6 Regional seed who is in line for the Midwest's fifth and final allocated women's foil spot for the NCAA Championships. Each team can only send two fencers per weapon to the NCAAs, with fencers from ND and OSU owning seven of the initial top-8 seeds. White's primary competition for the final NCAA spot was teammate Jillian Mahen (#9 Regional seed), who failed to reach the quartefinals ... thus (unofficially it appears that White may have locked up an NCAA berth).
Almeida (#7 initial seed/#6 in DE) could swipe one of the NCAA berths, should she win the title – and thus receive an automatic bid. If Almeida finishes second and Borrmann fourth, that may not be enough to bump her ahead of Borrmann in the selection formula (which factors in 40% of regular-season performance and 60% of Regional result).
Almeida's quarterfinal win – over OSU's Falencia Miller (#2 initial seed/#3 DE seed) – also could have an effect on who claims the Buckeyes' second NCAA spot (Miller or Cheng), pending the bouts that will place the quarterfinal losers (5-8) – but Miller is the more likely to advance, due to her #2 seed entering the Regional (compared to Cheng's #5). ... Of course, if three OSU fencers end up within the allocation range (top-5) – which is likely – the Buckeyes coaches have the option of selecting the two women's sabreists that will represent their team at the NCAAs.