CollegeFencing360.com

ANDRAS HORANYI
(Ohio State ... Men's Foil ... Sr. ... Boulder, Colorado)

HONORABLE MENTION
Nicole Ross (Columbia, women's foil, so.; Warner, New York, New York)
Benji Ungar (Harvard, men's epee, sr.; Bronz, New York)
Carolina Vloka (Harvard, women's sabre, fr.; Upper Saddle River, New Jersey)

Previous Recipients
   Week of Jan. 19-25 – fencers of the week Daryl Homer (St. John's, MS, fr.) and Daria Schneider (Columbia, WS, jr.) ... honorable mention: Enzo Castellani (Notre Dame, MF, fr.), Andras Horanyi (Ohio State, MF, sr.), Ewa Nelip (ND, WE, so.) and Nicole Ross (COL, WF, so.)
   Week of Jan. 26-Feb. 1 – fencers of the week Ewa Nelip (ND, WE, so. and Karol Kostka (ND, ME, sr.) ... honorable mention: (to be added)
   Week of Feb. 2-8 –  fencers of the week Noam Mills (Harvard, WF, fr.) and Jeff Spear (Columbia, MS, jr.) ... honorable mention: Jon Berkowsky (Penn, MS, jr.), Dan Cohen (Duke, MF, fr.), Lucille Jarry (Princeton, WF, fr.) and Caroline Vloka (Harvard, WS, fr.)
   Week of Feb. 16-22 –  fencers of the week Andrew Bielen (Harvard, MS, jr.) and Stephanie Aiuto (Columbia, WS, fr.) ... honorable mention: Sophire Courser (Vassar, WE, so.), Noam Mills (Harvard, WE, fr.), Robin Shin (MIT, WS, fr.) and Peter Souders (Boston College, MS, fr.)

• • •

Notre Dame freshman women's epeeists Courtney Hurley (San Antonio, Texas) and Ohio State senior men's foilist Andras Horanyi (Boulder, Colo.) – have been named the national fencers of the week for Feb. 23-March 1, in the fifth installment of the awards (as announced by CollegeFencing360.com). Three other fencers were named honorable mention for their efforts during the week: Columbia sophomore women's foilist  Nicole Ross, Harvard fifth-year senior men's epeeist  Benji Ungar, and Harvard freshman women's sabreist Caroline Vloka. Note that all five fencers are pictured in the right sidebar.

Fencers are selected based on several criteria, including: won-loss record, quality of opponents, clutch performances, and contribution to team success. Click on the Fencer of the Week archive link (at the top of this release) for information on earlier weekly recipients. 

Kelley Hurley (left)

HURLEY – who narrowly missed qualifying for the 2008 U.S. Olympic women's epee team (which included only one fencer, her older sister and ND junior Kelly Hurley) – entered the Midwest Fencing Conference Championships as  the #3 seed and dominated in her five-touch pool bouts (6-0, +22), before heading into the direct-elimination as the #5 seed. In her 15-touch DE bouts, she allowed an average of 7.7 points per bout – with no opponent totaling more than 11 points vs. Hurley.

Fresh off a dominating regular season (50-5 record), Hurley completed a 12-0 day at the MFCs with six wins in the DE. Her final three bouts came against three All-Americans who each were ranked in the top-4 for the DE phase: ND sophomore Ewa Nelip (#4 seed; 15-10 quartefinal), Northwestern junior Christa French (#1 seed; 15-10 semifinal) and Northwestern junior Joanna Niklinska (#3 seed; 15-8 title bout). Nelip entered the day as the #1 seed, meaning that Hurley's DE bouts included wins over both the initial #1 seed and the DE #1 seed.

HORANYI – a two-time NCAA champion (also runner-up in '06) – went 34-4 in the regular season before battling past several top foilists to win the MFC title for the third time in his impressive career. He entered the weekend as the MFC's #1 men's foil seed and allowed only five total touches while breezing through his six pool bouts. 

Andras Horanyi (left)

As the #3 DE seed (based on his +25 in the pools), Horanyi ultimately had to battle past four top fencers to claim the top spot. He allowed a total of only 28 touches (7.0 per bout) in those final four challenging matchups, with a 15-8 win over OSU teammate and fellow All-American Ben Parkins (round-of-16), a 15-7 quarterfinal victory over ND freshman Reddie Bentley (#6 DE seed), a 15-8 semifinal against ND sophomore All-American Steve Kubik (#2 DE seed, and a dominant 15-5 win in the title bout against talented ND newcomer Enzo Castellani (#5 DE seed). Parkins was the #14 DE seed but actually was #2 entering the MFC pools (Castellani was the #3 intitial seed, Kubik was #7 and Bentley #5).

ROSS won the Intercollegiate Fencing Association (IFA) women's foil title, besting a field that included top fencers from Harvard (Shelby Macleod and Arielle Pensler) and Penn (Ilana Sinkin and Laura Paragano), plus her Columbia teammate and fellow All-American Abby Caparros-Janto. After going 9-2 in her flight-A bouts (+29), Ross entered the DE as the top seed and went on to become the first Columbia fencer since 2002 (sixth all-time) to win the IFA women's foil title. Her DE wins included: a round-of-16 bout vs. #16 Zoe Evans of NYU (15-13), a 15-7 quarterfinal with #9 Rocky Rothenberg of Princeton, and a comfortable 15-4 semifinal vs. Harvard's Pensler (the #12 seed) – before topping Princeteton's Andrea Oliva (#6 seed) in the final bout. (Note: action photo to be added of Ross).

UNGAR – the '06 NCAA champion and 2008 Olympic hopeful – also had a strong showing at Brandeis in the IFAs, sparked by his 9-1 effort (+25) in a men's epee flight-A group that included All-Americans such as Penn's Ben Wieder, Yale's Michael Pearce and Columbia's Maz Czapanskiy (whose talented teammate Lorenzo Castertano was a flight-B entrant). Prior to defeating Princeton upstart Mike Elfassy in the title bout (15-8), Ungar had to survive three close bouts before the final – first against the Penn duo of Sam Monk in the round-of-16 (15-13) and Jacob Wischnia (#9 seed) in the quartefinals (15-14), followed by a 15-13 semifinal win over Yale's Pearce (#4). Pearce and Wischnia were the 3-4 finishers in the 2009 Ivy League men's epee round-robin championship (with Ungar finishing atop that group). 

VLOKA has fashioned a tremendous freshman season that recently included tying atop the Ivy League women's sabre round-robin standings. The junior national-teamer claimed the top seed in the IFA direct-elimination, after going 10-1 (+29) in flight-A - where her opponents included such top fencers as Columbia's Sam Roberts, MIT's Robin Shin, Penn's Danielle Kamis and Cornell's Alex Heiss (the full field also included Columbia's Stephanie Aiuto and Penn's other talented sabreists, Dominika Franciskowicz and Alexis Baran).

Vloka went on to become Harvard's first fencer since 2003 to win the IFA women's sabre title (third all-time), with her DE bouts including wins against all three Penn Fencers: vs. #16 Baran in the round-of-16 (15-6), Franciskowicz in a 15-7 quarterfinal, and Kamis in the semifinals (15-10). She capped the day with a comfortable victory over #3 Shin in the title bout (15-6), as Vloka impressively allowed only 29 touches (7.3 per bout) in the DE phase.

Caroline Vloka