Ohio State senior men's foilist Andras Horanyi – in quest of becoming a rare three-time NCAA champion – may not even reach the four-fencer medal round this year, after struggling on Thursday en route to a 7-7 record. CF360 crunched some numbers from the six-weapon NCAA era (2000-08) and discovered that the average round-robin victory total for men's foilist medal-round qualifiers has been 17.1 over the past nine years ... clearly not good news for Horanyi's "three-peat" hopes – and that doesn't even take into account the injury withdrawal of Duke's Dorian Cohen. With Cohen's spot vacated, Horanyi will have only eight bouts on Friday (instead of nine).
Even if Horanyi wins all his bouts over the final three rounds (8-0), his resulting record would be only 15-7. During the six-weapon era (2000-08), no men's foilists has advanced to the medal round with 15 (or fewer) wins in the round-robin. In fact, when looking at all three men's weapons, there has been only one 15-bout winner (Penn State epeeist Arthur Urman, in '08) who finished among the top-4 with only 15 wins. Urman went on to beat current Princeton sophomore Graham Wicas in the semifinals (15-11) but he lost a 15-7 title bout vs. Wayne State's Slava Zingerman, who currently stands in second place as he pursues his own third straight NCAA title.
Since 2000, there have been two men's foilists who reached the medal round with 16 wins: PSUs Gang Lu in 2000 and Yale's Cory Werk in 2004. Lu lost to Stanford's Felix Reichling in the semifinals (9-15) and then dropped a 15-7 bout to Yale's Ayo Griffin in the third-place bout. Werk bested St. John's standout Nitai Kfir in the semifinals (15-12), but OSU's Boaz Ellis was too strong in the title bout (15-8).
The highest medal-round cutoff in a men's weapon (since 2000) is 19, by the 2003 and '06 men's sabre fields. Those impressive foursomes: in 2003-SJU's Ivan Lee (23-0), OSU's Jason Rogers (20-3) and Adam Crompton (19-4), and PSU's Alex Weber (19-4); and in 2006-Crompton (21-2), Rogers (20-3), ND's Patrick Ghattas (20-3) and Harvard's Tim Hagamen (19-4).
Here's how the medal-round qualifiers have averaged, since 2000 (epee typically has the lowest cutoff, sabre the highest):
Men's Medal-Round Qualifiers (2000-08)
Foil ... 17.1 avg. round-robin wins ... low cutoff: 16 wins ('00, '04); high cutoff: 18 ('03, '07, '08)
Epee ... 16.8 avg. round-robin wins ... low cutoff: 15 wins ('08); high cutoff: 18 ('02, '03, '06)
Sabre ... 17.6 avg. round-robin wins ... low cutoff: 16 wins ('00, '07); high cutoff: 19 ('03, '06)
CF360 also used the same criteria to calculate the average cutoff for All-America win totals (top-12, with indicators usually separating #12 from #13):
Men's All-America/top-12 Finishers (2000-08)
Foil ... 11.6 avg. round-robin wins ... low cutoff: 11 wins (five times); high cutoff: 13 ('00)
Epee ... 11.4 avg. round-robin wins ... low cutoff: 11 wins ('00, '01, '02); high cutoff: 13 ('05, '08)
Sabre ... 11.0 avg. round-robin wins ... low cutoff: 10 wins ('00, '02); high cutoff: 12 ('04, '08)