Contact: Pete LaFleur (editor@collegefencing360.com)
The 2011 NCAA men's foil competition again is on pace to have fencers from Penn State and Notre Dame comprising the four semifinalist/medal-round spots. Following Thursday's first round of bouting, Penn State junior Miles Chamley-Watson (13-1; +32) sits atop the standings, followed by PSU sophomore David Willette (12-2; +35) and the Notre Dame duo of freshman Ariel DeSmet (12-2; +34) and junior Reggie Bentley (11-3; +26).
One year ago, Willette was the 2011 NCAA runner-up while Chamley-Watson reached the semifinals. Current Notre Dame juniors Gerek Meinhardt ('10 NCAA champion; '09 runner-up) and Enzo Castellani rounded out the 2010 medal-round foilists ... but Meinhardt was lost this season due to an injury and Castellani was edged by his teammates DeSmet and Bradley for the two ND entrant spots in 2011. In addition to Chamley-Watson and Meinhardt, the other 2009 NCAA men's foil semifinalists were PSU's Nick Chinman (the eventual '09 champ) and Columbia's Kurt Getz.
The men's round-robin concludes on Friday with three rounds (nine bouts) for each fencer. Air Force's Daniel Cohen (10-4; +21) has the best chance to jump into one of the medal-round spots, followed by two fencers at 9-5: Yale senior Nathanel Botwinick (+13) and Stanford freshman Turner Caldwell (+12).
(Reminder – The NCAA round-robin bouts are being contested at Ohio State's French Fieldhouse, while the medal-rounds bouts will be held in adjoining Saint John Arena. Friday's round-robin has a 9:30 a.m. start time, with the men's semifinals then slated to start at 2:00 p.m., with six bouts simultaneously, followed by the title bouts in the order of sabre, foil and epee).
Air Force's Cohen impressively swept the PSU foilists during Thursday's bouting (5-3 vs. Chamley-Watson; 5-1 vs. Willette), with Chamley-Watson winning the early head-to-head matchip vs. his PSU teammate Willette (5-3). When excluding their head-to-head bout, Chamley-Watson and Willette blitzed the field on Thursday to the tune of a 24-2 combined record and +67 total-points indicator. They allowed 57 touches in their 26 combined bouts versus fencers from other teams (only 2.2 opponent touches per bout).
Chamley-Watson (who sits near the top of the men's foil world rankings) technically entered the 2011 NCAAs with the 9th-best Fencing Strength Factor (for the 2010-11 college season), while Willette was #2 on that hypothetical list, DeSmet #1, Bentley #4, Daniel Cohen #17, Botwinick #11 and Caldwell #5.
Chamley-Watson and Willette will square off against their Notre Dame rivals on Friday, with other closing bouts against: Yale (Botwinick and current #22 Shiv Kachru), Julian Cardillo (Brandeis; current 10th-place), Drew's James Weiss (17th), OSU's Zain Shaito (11th) and Samuel Hardwicke-Brown (24th), and Detroit's Michael Purdy-Sachs (18th).
DeSmet went 4-1 on Thursday vs. fencers from the top contenders for the NCAA team title, with a sweep of Ohio State (5-2 vs. Shaito; 5-0 Hardwicke-Brown), a 5-1 win over the lone St. John's foil entrant (Eli Schenkel), and a split against Harvard (5-3 vs. Tommaso DeRobilant; 2-5 vs. Lucas Lin). Bentley also was 4-1 in those key bouts for the team standings, losing to Schenkel (1-5) but sweeping the foilists from OSU (5-1 Shaito; 5-3 Hardwicke-Brown) and Harvard (5-1 DiRobilant; 5-2 Lin).
In addition to their showdown bouts with Penn State, the ND foilists also will face the following fencers on Friday: Drew's James Weiss (currently in 17th place), Princeton's Robert Malcolm (21st) and Alex MIlls (9th), UNC's Joseph Alter (23rd), Penn's Vidur Kapur (13th), AFA's Cohen (5th) and Stanford's Caldwell (7th).
Air Force's Cohen – an All-American at Duke in 2009 – lost on Thursday against his former Blue Devils teammate (1-5 vs. Dorian Cohen), with his other losses coming against Caldwell (2-5; rematch of 2011 West Regional fenceoff won by Cohen) and Penn's Kapur (3-5). Cohen will attempt to earn a semifinalist spot on Friday, with the two huge bouts against Notre Dame while also facing: Columbia's Bo Charles (currently 16th) and Alex Pensler (12th), NYU's Phil Jameson (14th), Princeton's Malcolm and Mills, UNC's Alter and Drew's Weiss.
Based on the hypothetical pre-NCAAs comparison of their relative "Fencing Strength Factors," three of the foilists currently in the top-10 entered the competition w/ a comparative FSF "seeding" outside the top-10 (Daniel Cohen had the 17th-best FSF in the field, Botwinick 11th and Cardillo 20th). A couple fencers will be hoping to better match their FSF "seeds" on Friday, as Shaito (11th place) entered with the 3rd-best FSF, while Malcolm (21st) was the hypothetical #15 seed and Kachru (22nd) had the 13th-best FSF.
| Place | Name | School | V | Pct. | TS | TR | Ind. | |
| 1. | Miles Chamley-Watson | Penn State | 13 | 0.929 | 68 | 36 | +32 | |
| 2. | David Willette | Penn State | 12 | 0.857 | 64 | 29 | +35 | |
| 3. | Ariel DeSmet | Notre Dame | 12 | 0.857 | 65 | 31 | +34 | |
| 4. | Reggie Bentley | Notre Dame | 11 | 0.786 | 58 | 32 | +26 | |
| 5. | Daniel Cohen | Air Force | 10 | 0.714 | 59 | 38 | +21 | |
| 6. | Nathaniel Botwinick | Yale | 9 | 0.643 | 58 | 45 | +13 | |
| 7. | Turner Caldwell | Stanford | 9 | 0.643 | 56 | 44 | +12 | |
| 8. | Dorian Cohen | Duke | 8 | 0.571 | 54 | 47 | +7 | |
| 9. | Alexander Mills | Princeton | 8 | 0.571 | 53 | 46 | +7 | |
| 10. | Julian Cardillo | Brandeis | 8 | 0.571 | 49 | 51 | -2 | |
| 11. | Zain Shaito | Ohio State | 7 | 0.500 | 49 | 45 | +4 | |
| 12. | Alexander Pensler | Columbia | 7 | 0.500 | 49 | 48 | +1 | |
| 13. | Vidur Kapur | Pennsylvania | 7 | 0.500 | 48 | 51 | -3 | |
| 14. | Philip Jamesson | N.Y.U. | 7 | 0.500 | 47 | 54 | -7 | |
| 15. | Lucas Lin | Harvard | 6 | 0.429 | 45 | 56 | -11 | |
| 16. | Bo Charles | Columbia | 5 | 0.357 | 46 | 55 | -9 | |
| 17. | James Weiss | Drew | 5 | 0.357 | 45 | 57 | -12 | |
| 18. | Michael Purdy-Sachs | Detroit Mercy | 5 | 0.357 | 37 | 58 | -21 | |
| 19. | Tommaso DiRobilant | Harvard | 4 | 0.286 | 42 | 54 | -12 | |
| 20. | Eli Schenkel | St. John's | 4 | 0.286 | 42 | 56 | -14 | |
| 21. | Robert Malcolm | Princeton | 4 | 0.286 | 38 | 55 | -17 | |
| 22. | Shiv Kachru | Yale | 3 | 0.214 | 40 | 59 | -19 | |
| 23. | Joseph Alter | North Carolina | 3 | 0.214 | 37 | 64 | -27 | |
| 24. | Samuel Hardwicke-Brown | Ohio State | 1 | 0.071 | 29 | 67 | -38 | |