BELFAST – Easter Sunday action at the 2009 Junior World Championships featured team competition in two weapons, with Team USA placing 8th in women's sabre and 11th in men's epee. The U.S. women's sabre team features two college freshmen – Harvard's Caroline Vloka (the '09 NCAA runner-up) and fellow All-American Monica Aksamit of Penn State. Stanford freshman Kevin Mo is the oldest member of the U.S. men's foil team at this event.
The #9-seeded U.S. women's sabreists posted a mild upset over #8 South Korea (45-38) before losing to top-ranked Ukraine in the quarterfinals (37-45). Ukraine had moved on to the gold-medal match and was set to battle #2 Italy for the title.
The U.S. men's epeeists fell several spots shy of their #6 seed, after opening with a 45-25 win over #27 Honk Kong but then losing to upstart #11 Hungary, 29-45 (Hungary added a quarterfinal upset victory over #3 Russia, 45-21, and was next set to battle #2 Ikraine in the semifinals).
Monday's final day of action will feature the team competition in men's foil and women's epee, with a total of six U.S. collegians likely to compete in those events.