M. Fencing finish as expected at IFA tourney

Over the course of the regular season, the Penn men's fencing team lost only five matches. Competing at the Intercollegiate Fencing Association tournament at St. John's this weekend, the Quakers went up against the same teams they fenced during the regular season. It was no surprise that they finished in sixth place. Overall, in the combined men and women's score, Penn finished fifth. Saturday, the top three fencers from each school competed head-to-head. Each individual's record was tallied to give the final score for each weapon, the overall score and as a determinant for the individual championships. "If you don't do well in the team event, you don't qualify for the second day," Penn coach Dave Micahnik said. "The tournament is designed to provide the most positive incentive to do well for your team." For Penn, the foil team placed highest, finishing in third place. Freshman Cliff Bayer finished first in the "A" bracket, winning 9-of-10 bouts. Senior Adam Brown was scheduled to fence on the second strip, but was limited due to tendinitis. Freshman Dave Liu stepped in to fill his role. Fencing on the "C" strip, freshman Rick Bernstein finished second with eight victories. Both Bernstein and Bayer qualified for the individual tournament on Sunday. The epees for the Red and Blue also scored important victories. Senior Alex Edelman fenced against the top epees in the region, finishing an impressive fourth on his strip, also qualifying for the individual tournament on Sunday. Sophomore John Wright, fencing in the third position, came in third place, just missing the qualification for the individual competition. As for the Quakers' sabres, without their top two fencers, junior Sandy Agashiwala and sophomore Alex Platt, who did not travel due to injury and illness, the squad did not fare as well as their fellow swordsmen. Instead of leaving the third fencer in his post, sophomore Jeff Allen became the Penn representative on the "A" strip. Fencing against stronger competition, he could only manage one win. Penn sophomore Russ Boling could also only manage one victory. Fencing third, Red and Blue junior John Demas won five bouts and finished in fifth place. The sabres' lackluster performance placed them last in the sabre category. "Despite the absences, we should have had even more victories with the people we had," Micahnik said. "Sometimes you get a negative momentum and it's hard to recover." Bayer, Bernstein and Edelman's outstanding team performances qualified them to compete in Sunday's individual championships. Bayer, the No. 1-ranked foil fencer in the United States, finished in third overall, behind Dan Kellner of Columbia and Peter Devine of Yale. Both Kellner and Devine are ranked just behind Bayer nationally. Bernstein finished in tenth place overall. This is an impressive feat, as he was among only two fencers to qualify from the "C" strip. Edelman qualified for the finals in the individuals and finished in eighth place overall. Micahnik was not present for Saturday's team competition, as he was attending the funeral of Maestro Lajos Csiszar, the former Penn and world-class fencing coach. Filling in for Micahnik was first-year, but highly experienced, assistant coach Boris Tsypenyuk. This weekend, Penn travels to Haverford for the regional NCAA tournament, which 10 men fencers qualified to compete in. "We're in a real heavy-duty region," Micahnik said. "A lot of teams are peaking at this time. I hope that those who didn't quite perform this past weekend are now ready to do so, and those who did perform well can keep doing so."