Fencing heads to Yale and MIT to compete with six schools

This weekend the Penn fencing team heads to both Yale and MIT for multi-meets in which they will compete against Yale, MIT, NYU, Boston College, Tufts and Brandeis. Last weekend, the Quakers participated in their first meet of the season at Penn State. The women's team was pleased with its three victories against only one loss. "We proved last weekend that we have the drive to do well," junior foiler Amy Hozer said. Despite impressive bouts by sophomore sabre Michael Golia and sophomore epee Charles Hamann, the men's team finished with only one win in four tries, beating Haverford but falling to Duke, Notre Dame and Stanford. "We were disappointed," said sophomore foiler Yaron Roth. "Last week wasn't so good." This weekend's meets are expected to be grueling. The teams will leave for Yale early Saturday morning to make the 1 p.m. start. "Yale is always very tough," Penn coach Dave Micahnik said. Yale's foil team, which Micahnik notes as being particularly formidable, includes 1996 Olympic team member Peter Devine and 1998 NCAA foil champion Ayo Griffin, the Elis' first-ever national champion. Following the Yale meet, the Penn teams will head to Boston on Saturday night. The Quakers will face another day-long meet at MIT that starts Sunday at 9 a.m. Micahnik predicts that NYU will prove to be Sunday's toughest competition and he expects Penn to finish with more wins than losses. The teams' first bouts on Sunday will be against MIT. "MIT is our warmup for NYU, which is the stronger of the two," Roth said. Both the men's and women's teams are optimistic about this weekend's upcoming meets. Freshman epee Minh-Dang Nguyen will return to action for the Quakers after an illness that prevented her from competing last week. "In our first meet [last weekend] we really came together and did really well, and that boosts our spirits," Hozer said. "This weekend there will be even more fencers, which is even better." The men's team may not be as lucky. It has not yet been determined whether All-American foiler Cliff Bayer will be competing this weekend. Bayer is a two-time winner of the Under-20 National Foil Championship and the first American world championship medalist in junior men's foil. He claimed first at November's Penn State Open but has not yet competed for the Quakers this semester. The men's team also faces the absence of sophomore foiler David Cohen, the 1998 national Under-19 foil champion. Even without Bayer and Cohen, the men's team is going into the meet with high expectations. David Liu has recently emerged for the Quakers in the saber event, despite originally competing as a foiler. "He can basically do whatever the team needs," said Micahnik of Liu, a junior. Roth, who believes the Quakers are in for a better weekend in New England, stressed the significance of the two meets. "We are prepared to do our best this weekend," Roth said. "Every meet is important and we really want to win the Ivy."

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