RELEASE: March 11, 2014
Contact: Pete LaFleur (editor@collegefencing360.com)
Three teams – defending champion Princeton, perennial power Penn State and tournament host Ohio State – have received the maximum 12 indvidual qualifers for the upcoming NCAA Combined Men's and Women's Fencing Championship, to be held March 20-23 at French Fieldhouse in Columbus, Ohio. A year ago, Princeton and eventual runner-up Notre Dame were the only teams that qualified the maximum 12 fenders
It is not unprecedented (but it is rare) for a team with 11 entrants to win the title over a team with the full 12. Most notably, it happened in 2005 when Notre Dame's 11-fencer contingent rallied in Houston to beat another 11-fencer team, Ohio State, in a 173-171 thriller that played out in Houston (St. John's had been the only team to qualify 12 but finished third, at 162). That 2005 NCAA format closed with two days of the women's bouts, as Notre Dame surged past OSU – with the ND six-fencer contingent comprised entirely of fencers who competed in at least one NCAA individual final during their respective careers (foil–Alicja Kryczalo and Andrea Ament; epee–Kerry Walton and Amy Orlando; sabre–Mariel Zagunis and Valerie Providenza).
Two teams – Harvard and St. John's – will try to replicate that feat, by winning with only 11 entrants, are Harvard and St. John's – although they must overcome three 12-fencer teams (compared to only the one 12-fencer team that ND had to surpass in 2005). This marks the second straight year that Harvard qualified only one fencer in women's foil, senior Alex Kiefer (the 2011 NCAA champion). St. John's came up short in women's sabre, qualifying only one fencer in their first season without graduated standout Anna Limbach (the 2013 NCAA runner-up).
Over the past nine seasons (2006-14), there have been an average of 3.4 teams with the maximum 12 entrants at the NCAA Championships – including five in 2010 and '12 (four in '08; three in '06, '07, '09, '11 and '14; and a low of two in 2013).
Notre Dame will be a considerable longshot to win the 2014 NCAA title, after qualifying only one men's epeeists and one in women's sabre for a total of 10 – its lowest number of NCAA entrants in the 15-year history of the six-weapon format (2010-14). It ends what had been the nation's longest active streak of consecutive seasons (6) with 12 NCAA qualifiers, as the Irish sent the full dozen to the NCAAs every year from 2008-13. In fact, prior to this year Notre Dame had qualified 165 out of a possible 168 fencers (98.2%) in the six-weapon era from 2000-13 – missing only in 2004 (men's epee), 2005 (men's foil, when ND won the title with 11) and most recently in 2007 (women's epee).
The University of Pennsylvania (9) and Stanford (7) are the only other schools that qualified more than five fencers for the 2014 NCAAs, among the 144-fencer field (24 each in men's foil, men's epee, men's sabre, women's foil, women's epee and women's saber). Northwestern, which sponsors varsity fencing only on the women's side, qualified five of the maximum six fencers for the 2014 NCAAs.
Scroll to bottom of page for full qualifier lists, sorted by weapon
(some team & individual notes are included below, with plenty more coming to CF360 over the next few days)
2014 NCAA Fencing Championship Entrants (sorted by school)
12 – Ohio State, Penn State and Princeton
11 – Harvard (1 w-foil) and St. John's (1 w-sabre)
10 – Columbia (1 w-epee, 1 w-sabre) and Notre Dame (1 m-epee, 1 w-sabre)
9 – Univ. of Pennsylvania (one m-foil, 1 w-epee, 1 w-sabre)
7 – Stanford
5 – Air Force, Duke, Northwestern, Sacred Heart and Yale
4 – Brown and Temple
3 – Brandeis and Wayne State
2 – Cornell, MIT, NYU and North Carolina
1 – UC San Diego, Cleveland State, NJIT
All fencers will compete in a round-robin format of 23 five-touch bouts, spread out over two days (women on Thur.-Fri., March 20-22; followed by the men on the weekend). The team scoring is simple – with each individual victory counting as one point to the team total. The top-four finishers in each weapon will contend for individual titles (men on Friday afternoon, women Sunday), with 15-touch semifinals and title bouts. Those closing individual bouts do not factor into the team point totals.
Princeton in 2013 captured the program's first NCAA team title, since the men's and women's championships merged in 1990. Spanning the previous 11 seasons, three different schools each have collected three NCAA titles (from 2003-13): Notre Dame (2003, '05 and '11), Ohio State ('04, '08 and '12) and Penn State ('07, '09 and '10), with the other in that span won by Harvard in 2006. The Irish also won in 1994, the fifth year of the combined men's and women's championship, and have been the NCAA runner-up seven times over the past 24 seasons (1996, '97, '98, '99, 2000, '08, '09 and '13).
Ohio State could win the NCAA title at its home facility for the third time, after doing so in 2008 and '12. Penn State also owns a recent NCAA title while fencing at home, in 2010.
The 144-fencer field was rounded out by two at-large entries for each weapon, with the others advancing from the four regions (Northeast, Mid-Atlantic/South, Midwest and West) based on pre-determined allotments.
Several teams had some options in terms of which two fencers from certain weapons to send to the 2013 NCAAs, but in nearly every case those teams went strictly by the numbers (as determined by the NCAA qualification formula that is 40% season strength factor leading into the Regional weekend and then 60% based on Regional finish).
Columbia won the NCAA title in 1992 and '93 (the third and fourth years under the combined format), but the Lions have not returned to the top spot (or runner-up position) in nearly two decades. Harvard was somewhat of a surprise winner of that 2006 NCAA team title, held in Houston.
It has been more than a decade since St. John's won the NCAA team fencing title ('01), but the Red Storm have been close five other times during the combined format – finishing as runner-up during that 23-year stretch in 1995, 2000, '02, '07 and '10.
During the 24-year history of previous men's and women's combined NCAA championships, Penn State has either won the title (12 – 1990, '91, '95, '96, '97, '98, '99, 2000, '02, '07, '09 and '10) or finished as runner-up (8 – 1992, '93, '94, 2001, '03, '04, '06 and '11) every year except 2005 (ND won, OSU 2nd), 2008 (OSU won, ND 2nd), 2012 (OSU won, Princeton 2nd) and 2013 (Princeton was the champs, ND the runner-up).
There are 20 fencers in the 2014 NCAA field who previously have reached the NCAA individual medal round (a total of 21 times), led by five former NCAA champions:
• Notre Dame graduate student Gerek Meinhardt (2010 NCAA men's foil champion; 2nd in '09, 3rd in '13)
• Harvard senior Alex Kiefer (2011 NCAA women's foil champion; 11th in 2012, 6th in '13)
• Ohio State senior Zain Shaito (2012 NCAA men's foil champion; 10th in '11, 6th in '13)
• Notre Dame sophomore Lee Kiefer (2013 NCAA women's foil champion) … yes, she is Alex's littler sister
• Stanford sophomore Alex Massialas (2013 NCAA men's foil champion)
(One sidenote – a couple of former NCAA champions failed to make the 2014 NCAA field, including the defending champion Michael Mills of Penn in men's sabre, plus ND's Ariel DeSmet, the 2011 men's foil champ.)
The 2014 NCAA field also includes five fencers who have combined to an NCAA individual runner-up a total of six times, led by Penn State veteran foilist David Willette (2010 & '13 runner-up, also 3rd in '11), along with current U-Penn so. Shaul Gordon (2013 NCAA men's saber runner-up, while fencing for Penn State), plus a couple other 2013 NCAA second-place finishers –Columbia sophomore women's foilist Jackie Dubrovich and Princeton veteran Susannah Scanlan – and finally Penn so. Luona Wang ('12 women's foil runner-up).
Finally, there are 10 other fencers who have reached the NCAA medal round previously (but lost in their semifinal bouts): men's epee–Kristian Boyadzhiev (OSU '12) … men's sabre–Phil Dershwitz (Princeton '12) and Adrian Bak (PSU '13) … women's foil–Alina Altokhina (PSU '12), Mona Sahaito (OSU '12) and Madi Zeiss (ND '13) … women's epee–Kat Holmes (Princeton '12) and Vivian Kong (Stanford '13) … women's sabre (both 2013)–Gracie Stone (Princeton) and Gillian Litynski (UNC).
In addition to the aforementioned DeSmet and Mills, three other former NCAA medal-round fencers who were active in 2013-14 did not reach the 2014 NCAAs: Princeton women's foilist Eve Levin (2011 NCAA runner-up), Yale senior men's epeeist Peter Cohen (2011 semifinalist) and Stanford senior men's foilist Turner Caldwell, the 2012 NCAA runner-up (he missed most of 2013-14 due to injury and could return for a fifth year in 2013-14).
One other recent NCAA champion again will be on hand in an official capacity, as 2009 women's epee champ Nastia Ferdman (Penn State) is a second-year assistant coach with Temple.
This is Princeton's fifth straight year with the dozen NCAA entrants. Harvard had 12 NCAA qualifiers recently in 2010 and again in '12, with Columbia's most-recent 12-fencer contingents coming in 2007 and '08. Penn State surprisingly has sent the max. 12 fencers to the NCAAs only five times during the past 10 years: 2006, '07, '09, '10 and '14 ('07, '09 and '10 all were title-winning years for PSU).
Starting in 2005, St. John's has produced 12-fencer NCAA contingents four more times (also '07, '08, '10 and '11). Ohio State had a 12-fencer group at the 2008 NCAAs (OSU won that year), followed by a dozen entries in 2009, '11, '12 and now in '14.
Here's the full list of the 144 qualifiers for the 2014 NCAAs (plenty of NCAA field analysis, historical perspective, etc., coming later on CF360:
Notes similar to those listed below the foil entrants will be added to this release for the other five weapons.
2014 NCAA MEN'S FOIL ENTRANTS
* – indicates number of previous appearances in the NCAA Championships
Ohio State – jr. Chris Colley** (17th in '12, 12th in '13) and sr. Zain Shaito*** (10th in '11, 1st in '12, 6th in '13)
Penn State – so. Nobuo Bravo and 6th-yr,-sr. David Willette*** (2nd in '10, 3rd in '11, 2nd in '13)
(Willette was team option/replacement)
Princeton – so. Rodney Chen* (15th in '13) and so. Michael Dudey* (5th in '13)
Harvard – jr. Brian Kaneshige* (12th in '12, 7th in '13) and so. Michael Woo* (8th in '13)
St. John's – sr. Max Blitzer (14th in '12) and so. Michele Caporizzi* (9th in '13)
Notre Dame – fr. Kristjan Archer and 6th-yr.-sr. Gerek Meinhardt*** (2nd in '09, 1st '10, 3rd '13)
Columbia – so. Harrison Bergman and so. Adam Mathieu* (16th in '13)
Penn – jr. Jason Chang
Stanford – fr. Stephen Aman and so. Alex Massilas* ('13 champion)
Air Force – jr. Alex Chiang (11th in '12)
Brandeis – jr. Noah Berman
Duke – fr. Joseph Lam
New Jersey Institute of Technology – fr. David Kong
New York University – sr. Christian Vastola (at-large entrant)
Sacred Heart – jr. Andrew Holmes* (13th in '13)
Wayne State – sr./jr. Quentin Schneider* (16th in '12, 20th in '13) (at-large entrant)
Notes – 13 of these 24 entrants competed in the 2013 NCAAs (10 of the 12 All-Americans from 2013 are back in the field) … all told, nearly two-thirds of the 2014 entrants (15 of 24) have past NCAA Championships experience, as St. John's senior Max Blitzer and Air Force jr. are back in the NCAAs after missing a return in 2013 … that means we have nine first-time NCAA entrants in the 2014 NCAA men's foil field (four of them freshmen, also two sophomores, two juniors and NYU sr, Christian Vastola) … breakdown of the 2014 field by class: two sixth-year seniors, four seniors, six juniors, eight sophomore and the four freshmen … the 15 who have fenced in the NCAAs before have 20 combined previous NCAA appearances, led by four who will be appearing in their fourth NCAAs: OSU's Zain Shaito, ND's duo of Gerek Meinhardt and Ariel DeSmet, PSU's David Willette … there are three former NCAA champions in the field – Meinhardt ('10), Shaito ('12) and Stanford's Alex Massialas ('13) … Willette was the NCAA runner-up in both 2010 and '13 (plus a 2011 semifinalist) … active fencers who competed in the 2013 NCAAs but failed to return in 2014 include Notre Dame senior Ariel DeSmet (the 2011 NCAA champion, 10th in '13) and Stanford three-time All-American/012 NCAA runner-up Turner Caldwell (injured/did not qualify for Regional), along with St. John's senior Eli Schenkel (18th at 2013 NCAAs), the U-Penn veteran duo of Adam El Kassas (21st) and LeLand Berstein (23rd), Brandeis' Julian Cardillo (22nd) and Drew senior James Weiss (24th) … four of the 2013 entrants moved on to graduation, most notably Penn State four-time NCAA semifinalist Miles-Chamley Watson, along with Sacred Heart's Stuart Holmes (14th at '13 NCAAs), NYU's Phil Jameson (17th) and UNC's Joseph Alter (19th).
Notes similar to those listed below the foil entrants will be added to this release for the other five weapons.
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2014 NCAA MEN'S EPEE ENTRANTS
Ohio State – Kristian Boyadzhiev and Inaki De Guzman
Penn State – Conor Shepard and Yasser Mahmoud (team option/replacement)
Princeton – Alex House and Jack Hudson
Harvard – Alex Eldeib and Mike Raynis (at-large entrant)
St. John's – Yevgeniy Karyuchemko and Cooper Schumacher
Columbia – Jake Hoyle and Brian Ro
Notre Dame – Garrett McGrath
Penn – Clifford Fishler and Royce Shipp
Stanford – Jake Harbour and Paul Riviere
Duke – Dylan Nollner and Alessio Santoro
Sacred Heart – Jonathan Jacovino and Charles Clark (at-large entrant)
Brown – Simon Jones
Cleveland State – Paul Duchow
MIT – Joseph Rafidi
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2014 NCAA MEN'S SABRE ENTRANTS
Ohio State – Fares Arfa and Rhys Douglas
Penn State – Adrian Bak and Kaito Streets
Princeton – Philip Dershwitz and Peter Pak (at-large entrant)
Harvard – Eric Arzoian and Alexander Ryjik
St. John's – Roman Sydorenko and Ferenc Valkai
Columbia – Geoffrey Loss and Will Spear
Notre Dame – John Hallsten and Kevin Hassett
Penn – Shaul Gordon and Steven Yang
Yale – Hugh O'Cinneide and Reed Srere (at-large entrant)
Air Force – Ryan Redhead
Brandeis – Adam Mandel
UC San Diego – Travis Tibbits
Duke – Chris Monti
North Carolina – Sam Austin
NYU – Andrew Kelly
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2014 NCAA WOMEN'S FOIL ENTRANTS
Ohio State – Alanna Goldie and Mona Shaito
Penn State – Alina Antokhina and Clarisse Luminet
Princeton – Sharon Gao and Ambika Singh
Harvard – Alexandra Kiefer
St. John's – Marta Hausman and Irene Spezzamonte
Columbia – Jackie Dubrovich and Sara Taffel (team option/replacement)
Notre Dame – Lee Kiefer and Madison Zeiss
Penn – Cassidy Seidl and Luona Wang
Air Force – Mary McElwee and Madeline Giradot
Northwestern – Jen Yamin (at-large entrant)
Temple – Fatima Largaespada (at-large entrant)
Brandeis – Carolina Mattos
Brown – Kathryn Hawrot
Cornell – Angelica Gangemi
Wayne State – Zuzanna Sobczak
Yale – Lauren Miller
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2014 NCAA WOMEN'S EPEE ENTRANTS
Ohio State – Eugenia Falqui and Caroline Piasecka (at-large entrant)
Penn State – Jessie Gottesman-Radanovich and Jessica O'Neil-Lyubinsky
Princeton – Kat Holmes and Susannah Scanlan
Harvard – Isabel DiTella and Emma Vaggo (team option/replacement)
St. John's – Alina Ferdman and Isis Washington
Columbia – Mason Speta
Notre Dame – Nicole Ameli and Ashley Severson
Penn – Aleina Edwards
Stanford – Francesca Bassa and Vivian Kong
Northwestern – Dina Bazabayeva and Courtney Dumas
Temple – Rachel Clark and Chantal Montrose
Cornell – Victoria Wines
Duke – Sarah Collins (at-large entrant)
Sacred Heart – Megan Floiyd
Yale – Katherine Miller
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2014 NCAA WOMEN'S SABRE ENTRANTS
Ohio State – Alexa Antipas and Celine Merza
Penn State – Nicole Glon and Teodora Kakhiani
Princeton – Gracie Stone and Diamond Wheeler
Harvard – Aliya Itzkowitz and Adienne Jaricki
St. John's – Alexandra Tannous
Columbia – Sarah Yee
Notre Dame – Johanna Thill (at-large entrant)
Penn – Shyria Joshi
Stanford – Alexa Rohan
Northwestern – Alisha Gomez-Shah and Julia Abelsky (at-large entrant)
Brown – Caitlin Taylor and Christine Whalen
Temple – Tiki Kastor
Air Force – Alyssa Hofelina
MIT – Cordelia Avery
North Carolina – Gillian Litynski
Sacred Heart – Julia Greene
Wayne State – Kaya Klodawska
Yale – Joanna Lew