COLLEGE FENCING 360.com
contact: Pete LaFleur (editor@collegefencing360.com)
(Harvard ... Men's Sabre ... Jr. ... Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
STEPHANIE AIUTO
(Columbia ... Women's Sabre ... Jr. ... Great Neck, New York)
HONORABLE MENTION
Sophie Courser (Vassar, women's epee, so.; Warner, New Hampshire)
Noam Mills (Harvard, women's foil, fr.; Kfar Saba, Israel)
Robin Shin (MIT, women's sabre, fr.; Brookline, Massachusetts)
Peter Souders (Boston College, men's sabre, fr.; Silver Springs, Maryland)
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.)
• • •
A pair of Ivy League sabre fencers – University of Pennsylvania junior Andrew Bielen (Philadelphia) and Columbia freshman Stephanie Aiuto (Great Neck, N.Y.) – have been named the national fencers of the week for Feb. 16-22, in the fourth installment of the awards (as announced by CollegeFencing360.com). Four other fencers were named honorable mention for their efforts during the week: Vassar sophomore women's epeeist Sophie Courser, Harvard freshman women's epeeist Noam Mills, MIT freshman women's sabreist Robin Shin, and Boston College freshman sabreist Peter Souders. Note that all six 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.
(Note: CF360 originally planned to not award fencers of the week for Feb. 16-22, due to a lower number of events and bout totals ... but a closer look at the accomplishments warranted a full group of honorees. Also note that some of the gaps – data/photos – from earlier honor groups will be added soon; we likewise hope to add some action photos to this release).
This week's six honorees hail from six different home states/foreign countries: Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, and Israel. Freshmen from throughout the country continue to impress – including four of the six fencers honored in this release.
BIELEN served as one of the veteran leaders for a Penn men's fencing team that won the Ivy League title for the first time since 1999. The Quakers defeated several top-10 opponents during their undefeated 2009 regular season – including a 16-11 victory over Harvard on the second and final day of the Ivy League Round-Robin Championship (Feb. 22, at Brown).
Bielen won all six of his pressure-packed bouts on Sunday (vs. Harvard and Yale), helping secure the conference title. The 2007 All-American allowed only 10 opponent touches in those six bouts, with a noteworthy win (5-2) over Harvard freshman sensation Valentin Staller. Over the course of Columbia's five Ivy League matches (three earlier, on Feb. 8 at Columbia), Bielen went 13-2 and tied for second in the men's sabre field (trailing only Columbia's Jeff Spear, the defending NCAA champion).
Stephanie Aiuto (pictured)
AIUTO stepped into the Columbia women's sabre lineup in place of veteran Daria Schneider (the 2007 NCAA champ and a 2008 Olympic hopeful) and impressively met that challenge, ultimately tying Harvard freshman Caroline Vloka atop the 2009 Ivy League women's sabre standinggs (16-2). Aiuto swept her Sunday bouts (vs. Princeton and Cornell), allowing only 12 touches in those matchups – highlighted by a shutout win over Cornell's Alex Heiss (a 2008 NCAA qualifier).
In the earlier part-1 Ivy League bouting, Aiuto had swept the talented Penn sabre trio (Danielle Kamis, Alexis Baren, and and Dominika Franciskowicz) in successive 5-4 bouts, also adding a 5-1 win over Brown's Alevi. Her low loss total (2) over the course of the tournament included dropping a bout to Vloka.
Aiuto combined with fellow freshman Samantha Roberts and sophomore Jackie Jacobson to go 45-9 in their Ivy League bouts. Schneider missed part-1 due to a World Cup schedule conflict and then opted not to fence in part-2, allowing Aiuto to complete her clutch performance subbing for a defending NCAA champion.
COURSER (Warner, N.H.) won the New England Championships women's epee title for the second consecutive year, thanks to a 14-0 record in the elite flight-A before progressing through the direct-elimination phase (where she defeated Wellesley upstart Ashley Paquin in the barrage final). The first Vassar epeeist ever to win multiple NEC titles, Courser also helped the Vassar women post their highest finish ever (3rd) at the marathon event.
Over the course of her round-robin and DE bouts, Courser finished ahead of several top fencers (despite the absence of a pair of former NCAA qualifiers, Haverford's Emma Buckingham and Kaitlin Kozel of Brandeis). The 2009 NEC epee field still included the likes of MIT's Stephanie Shin ('08 NCAA participant), Wellesley's Emily Johnson and Tufts standout Coryn Wolk (who finished as the '08 runner-up, behind Courser).
SOUDERS (Silver Springs, Md.) also was facing a field that was missing a key rival (Sacred Heart freshman Marty Williams), but he still had to battle past the likes of BC teammate Malcolm Conley. MIT's Igor Kopylov and Vassar's Andrew Fischl (each of them former NCAA quaifiers). In addition to winning the NEC men's sabre title, Souders also helped BC win the men's sabre title and the overall men's NEC crown (he earlier won the 2008 New England Fall Invitational, with Williams finishing second).
After completing a perfect record in his flight-A bouts (12-0), Souders moved on through the DE and edged Fischl by one point in the NEC barrage final (Conley finished third while the defending NEC champion Kopylov was seventh).
MILLS (Kfar Saba, Israel) continued the dominance that had earned her CF360 national fencer-of-the-week honors two weeks earlier. The 2008 Olympian allowed only six total touches while going 6-0 in Sunday's conclusion of the Ivy League Championships – yielding a nearly perfect record (17-1) over that two-day event. Mills compiled the best 2009 Ivy League record of any fencer (man or woman) and yielded only 29 touches (1.6 per bout) over the course of the two days.
SHIN (Brookline, Mass.) turned in the same trifecta as Souders, winning her weapon at the NEC while also helping her weapon group (MIT women's sabre) finish first and being a key member of MIT's overall NEC women's championship. After going unbeaten in her flight-A bouts (14-0), Shin moved through the DE and finished ahead of Krista Bacci (Sacred Heart) for the NEC title. Bacci placed third at the '08 NECs and went on to compete in the NCAAs.
Some of Shin's toughest opposition came from her teammates Molly Kozminsky (3rd) and Lauren Chilton (7th), along with Anna Hanley of Brandeis. Hanley won the 2008 New England Fall Invitational, with Shin taking second. (Shin's sister Stephanie is a junior epeeist for MIT and competed in the 2008 NCAAs).