SEASON PREVIEW: W. Fencers look to improve on 5th place

Strong veterans coming off a fifth-place ranking in the country last year coupled with a group of talented young recruits may give the Penn women's fencing team the strength it needs to regain the Ivy League Championship and possibly vault to the top of the NCAA's. Two years ago, Penn coach Dave Micahnik's squad rose to the top of the Ivies with a stellar season, but last winter it dropped matches to Princeton and Columbia. Despite these defeats, the Quakers (3-2 Ivy League, 8-5 overall), under captain Robin Cochie-Ramos (currently a graduate student at Harvard Law), performed well enough at Regionals to receive a bid to the NCAA tournament, and consequently made a powerful showing and finished fifth in the country. This year's Quakers have gaps to fill in order to achieve their goal of improving on last season's ranking. But these gaps aren't extremely wide, and they are continually closing in now that the season is underway. Seniors Rachel Iannacone and Anne Gaeta are returning veterans for the squad. As a junior, Iannacone made 2nd team all-American, and Gaeta, this season's captain, was a first-team all-Ivy fencer as a sophomore. "They are looking good in training," Micahnik said. "The two of them form the core of our team." In the four-person starting lineup, two spots remain unclinched. These positions are being sought after by junior Inca Chui, a substitute on last year's NCAA team, junior Christina Kim, sophomore Sarah Johns and junior Velda McCune. McCune, an exchange student from Scotland, is ranked eighth nationally in her homeland. Sophomore Megumi Sakae, a starter and big winner as a freshman, is out until Christmas break with a stress fracture. This season freshmen strength comes from Inna Zdrovyak and Elisabeth Cornfield, both foil fencers who may step up into the newly-formed epee division. The Quakers face Ivy competition that looks formidable at the top but also has very weak teams at the bottom. The Harvard squad recruited two good freshmen and will be a more solid opponent this season. Princeton returns three talented sophomores. The Quakers hope to match-up as they did in their NCAA tournament defeat of Princeton this past year, and not perform as they did in their regular-season loss to the Tigers. Columbia is always a powerful opponent, but without Ann Marsh, their Olympic Team fencer, the Penn squad should match up more advantageously with the Lions. Yale is consistently back and forth while Brown fields a squad that just isn't very good. Cornell has recently dropped its program, joining Dartmouth as the only Ivy schools not to field fencing teams. "The league has always been extremely balanced," Micahnik said. "There are really four teams in contention. Our goal is to win this championship." Penn's preseason, consisting of the Temple Open earlier in November and the Penn State Open this past weekend, has given the squad a chance to test its training. "These individual competitions are for the fencers to get out and get some action," Micahnik said. "You see what you have and you see what you need to work on." Micahnik's goals include having individuals move up in rankings, completing the season with a league championship, and hopefully matching, if not surpassing, the team's NCAA ranking. And he strongly believes the squad is capable of it. The official season begins on January 27 against Northwestern and Stanford. "Everything is for real now," Micahnik said. "Everything counts."