by Pete LaFleur (editor@collegefencing360.com)
CLICK HERE for Northeast Regional men's entries
Fencers from the Northeast Region will compete in the final stage of qualification for the 2013 NCAA Fencing Championships (March 21-24, in San Antonio) during the 2013 NCAA Northeast Regional, to be held on Sunday, March 10, at St. John's (starting 9 a.m. ET, in Carnesecca Arena and Taffner Fieldhouse).
Here are the particulars:
• The Northeast Regional includes fencers from 18 schools that sponsor varsity fencing teams, most notably top-10 nationally ranked teams from St. John's, Columbia and Harvard … along with Boston College, Brandeis, Brown, Cornell (women only), Hunter, MIT, CCNY (women), NYU, Queens College (women), Sacred Heart, Tufts (women), Vassar, Wellesley (women), Yale and Yeshiva.
• Women's participants in the Northeast Regional are listed below (men's entries linked above), grouped by weapon and sorted in "seeding order" (which is based on individual results during team dual-meet competition). Fencers among the top-30 "national seeds" also are noted in the listing below.
• Each team can have a maximum of 12 men's competitors and 12 women at each Regional (distributed in any combination among the three weapon groups).
• The Northeast Region has nine allocated automatic spots in each weapon for the NCAA Championships, except men and women's epee (8 each). Each team may send a maximum of two qualifying fencers per weapon to San Antonio for the NCAAs.
• Final qualification to the NCAAs is based on two primary factors: 40% is based on each fencers mathematical season "strength factor" (prior to the Regional) while 60% is based on Regional finish. The actual strength factor numbers are based on a mathematical formula and are different from the seeding. Strength factor numbers are not made available to the public. Based on the formula, the strenght-fator gap between seeds can vary substantially (as opposed to the 1-2-3-4, etc., seeding, which is used for setting up the initial pools).
• The Northeast Regional will have an initial "play-in" phase for each weapon to produce 35 fencers in each field, followed by five pools-of-seven (top-21 advance) and then three pools-of-seven to then produce a final pool-of-12.
• In some cases, coaches may have more than two fencers fall within the top-7 qualification standard in a particular weapon, and coaches then are able to select which two fencers will represent their team in San Antonio.
• In addition to the 22 automatic qualifiers per weapon that are produced from the four Regionals, there are two at-large bids (per weapon) that will complete the 24-fencer NCAA fields in each weapon. The top-two qualifiers in each weapon (and from each region) who were not among the automatic qualifiers will be considered for the at-large spots, as long as their team does not already have two qualifiers in that weapon. At-large selections are based solely on the pre-Regional season strength factor.
• A couple years ago, Regional winners were guaranteed a spot in the NCAA Championships but the current policy is that the NCAA committee "must consider" such winners for qualification (not an automatic qualification).
Northeast Regional 2013 Women's Foil Entries
(sorted by seed, based on season strength factor)
Northeast Region receives 9 automatic w-foil allotments to NCAA Championship
1 – Evgeniya Kirpicheva (St. John's) | #3 "national seed" ** Northeast Regionl defending champion **
2 – Jackie Dubrovich (Columbia) | 4
3 – Alexandra Kiefer (Harvard) | 6 ** 2011 Northeast Regional champion (also '11 NCAA champ) **
4 – Marta Hausman (St. John's) | 19
5 – Irina Koroleva (St. John's) | 22
6 – April Whitney (Cornell) | 28
7 – Audra Fox (NYU)
8 – Lauren Miller (Yale)
9 – Melissa Corona (St. John's)
10 – Caroline Mattos (Brandeis)
11 – Angelica Gangemi (Cornell)
12 – D'Meca Homer (Columbia)
13 – Christine McIntosh (Cornell)
14 – Jayme Smith (Sacred Heart)
15 – Katherine LeCLair (Vassar)
16 – Charley McCarter (Sacred Heart)
17 – Kathy Chou (Harvard)
18 – Linda Zhang (Boston College)
19 – Tess Kallmeyer (Sacred Heart)
20 – Aileen Trella (Sacred Heart)
21 – Avery Nackman (Brown)
22 – Katheryn Hawrot (Brown)
23 – Audrey Lee (Brown)
24 – Rebecca Popkin (NYU)
25 – Stephanie Lo (NYU)
26 – Megan Murphy (Yale)
27 – Annette Kim (Brandeis)
28 – Linda Zhou (Yale)
29 – Grace Lisius (Boston College)
30 – Julia Kimmerly (MIT)
31 – Hannah Kolus (Brown)
32 – Kelly Ng (NYU)
33 – Wynne Van der Veen (CCNY)
34 – Klarissa Armada (CCNY)
35 – Rebecca Shi (MIT)
36 – Haley Ward (Queens College)
37 – Anastasia Stevens (Vassar)
38 – Mai Lin Li (Tufts)
39 – Irene Yenko (Hunter)
40 – Elise Dong (Wellesley)
41 – Camille Smulski (Wellesley)
42 – Eileen Cho (Wellesley)
43 – Naja Fandal (Hunter)
44 – Sophia Lobo (CCNY)
45 – Deena Gilboa (Yeshiva)
note – Two fencers who went to earn sports on U.S. Olympic teams – Harvard's Emily Cross (2009) and Columbia's Nicole Ross (2010) are recent Northeast Regional women's foil champions.
Northeast Regional 2013 Women's Epee Entries
(sorted by seed, based on season strength factor)
Northeast Region receives 8 automatic w-epee allotments to NCAA Championship
1 – Lydia Kopecky (Columbia) | #8 "national seed"
2 – Zsofia Fath (St. John's) | 14
3 – Emma Vaggo (Harvard) | 19 ** Northeast Regional defending champion **
4 – Nina Van Loon (Harvard) | 20
5 – Isis Washington (St. John's) | 21
6 – Alina Ferdman (St. John's) | 26
7 – Felicia Sun (Harvard)
8 – Megan Floyd (Sacred Heart)
9 – Emma Peterson (Columbia)
10 – Natalie Gegan (Columbia)
11 – Olivia Adragna (Boston College)
12 – Nadia Eldeib (Harvard)
13 –Cara Hall (Boston College)
14 –Natalie Rossetti (Sacred Heart)
15 – Cory Abbe (Brown)
16 – Katherine Miller (Yale)
17 – Mounica Paturu (MIT)
18 – Caitlin Clevenger (Vassar)
19 – Laney Caldwell (Brown)
20 – Diana Tsinis (Columbia)
21 – Vivian Yung (NYU)
22 – Laura Jarin-Lipschitz (MIT)
23 – Olivia Weller (Cornell)
24 –Jenny Zheng (Cornell)
25 – Alyssa Parkhurst (NYU)
26 – Robyn Shffer (Yale)
27 – Taylor Wong (Cornell)
28 – Sonya Glickman (Brandeis)
29 – Colleen Mason (Sacred Heart)
30 – Christiana Lai (NYU)
31 – Mia Volpe (Sacred Heart)
32 – Julia Malleck (Tufts)
33 – Gwendolyn Mowell (Brandeis)
34 – Katharine Lynch (Tufts)
35 – Alexis Gremillion (Brandeis)
36 – Megan Lewis (Vassar)
37 – Alison Barton (Yale)
38 – Abigail Hepworth (Tufts)
39 – Charlotte Treadwell (Wellesley)
40 – Ashley Muller (Cornell)
41 – Kristi Ha (Brandeis)
42 – Kathryn Ledbetter (Wellesley)
43 – Danielle Brando (Queens College)
44 – Rochelle Reyes (Queens College)
45 – Lena Lai (CCNY)
46 – Dina Eghbali (Yeshiva)
47 –Noelle Sawyer (Vassar)
48 – Michelle Gelbs (CCNY)
49 – Samantha Li (Hunter)
50 – Megan Desir (Hunter)|
51 – Elizama Pons-Montalvo (CCNY)
52 – Nashwa El-Sayed (Queens College)
notes – Former Harvard fencer and three-time NCAA runner-up Noam Mills was the Northeast Regional women's epee title in 2009 and again in 2011 … former Columbia fencer Neely Brandfield-Harvey was the 2010 Northeast Regional champion.
Northeast Regional 2013 Women's Sabre Entries
(sorted by seed, baed on season strength factor)
M-A/S Region receives 9 automatic w-sabre allotments to NCAA Championship
1 – Loweye Diedro (Columbia) #1 "national seed"
2 – Anna Limbach (St. John's University) | 2 ** Northeast Regional defending champion **
3 – Margaret McDonald (St. John's) | 8
4 – Essane Diedro (Columbia) | 11
5 –Jackie Leval (NYU) | 23
6 – Aliya Itzkowitz (Harvard) | 24
7 – Alexandra Tannous (St. John's) | 26
8 – Kara Lee (Harvard) | 29
9 – Robin Shin MIT
10 – Beverly Yang (Cornell)
11 – Madeline Oliver (Yale)
12 – Elena Helgiu (Harvard)
13 – Audrey Speer (Cornell)
14 – Zoe Messinger (Brandeis)
15 – Christine Whalen (Brown)
16 – Lauren Altman (Brown)
17 – Elena Tinga (Sacred Heart)
18 – Annabeth Gellman (MIT)
19 – Sarah Gruman (Columbia)
20 –Maria Schneeweiss (Boston College)
21 – Ericka Persson (NYU)
22 – Sarah Yee (Columbia)
23 – Marney Krupat (Boston College)
24 – Shelby Bean (Tufts)
25 – Maria Martinez (Yale)
26 – Emmily Smith (Brandeis)
27 – Alexandra Boden (Tufts)
28 – Sarah Innes-Gold (Tufts)
29 – Brenda Seah (Yale)
30 – Madison Douglas (MIT)
31 – Lauren Cebello (Sacred Heart)
32 – Samantha Gross (Brown)
33 – Tracy Bratt (Vassar)
34 – Julia Hisey (Tufts)
35 – Alaina Uhouse (Cornell)
36 – Rachel Hayes (Yale)
37 – Dania Wright (Wellesley)
38 – Monica Yuen (Hunter)
39 – Mariami Bakauri (Wellesley)
40 – Valentina Cuomo (CCNY
41 – Carly Gerbi (NYU)
42 – Grace Tsui (CCNY)
43 – Dayra Liz (CCNY)
notes – Former St. John's standout Dagmara Wozniak won the Northeast Regional women's saber title in 2010 and again in '11 … former Coumbia fencer (and current Lions assistant coach) Daria Schneider was the 2009 Northeast Regional champion.