M. Fencers fourth is a strong ISA field

While the oldest college fencing tournament celebrated the beginning of its second century of existence this weekend, the Penn men's fencing team endured a story that probably seemed just as old. As has happened numerous times this year, the Quakers started off quickly but struggled at the end, yielding an acceptable but not desired result at the 101-year-old Intercollegiate Fencing Association tournament at New York University. Facing a 12-team field that featured the best fencing squads on the east coast, Penn was in first place by a comfortable margin in Saturday's early stages. But once Penn was forced to fence the stronger teams, notably eventual winner St. John's and third-place Yale, it slipped and wound up finishing fourth. Considering the caliber of competition -- such as Columbia and Princeton, which had beaten Penn earlier in the year but finished below it this past weekend -- the Penn result is respectable. But that was of little consolation to the Quakers. "We always enter these events wanting to win, not worrying about what place we'll finish," Penn coach Dave Micahnik said. "We believe we are a very good team and should be able to compete with anyone. I'm not disappointed with the result because whatever our guys had, they gave it. It's just that we had some bad breaks and lost a couple of bouts we shouldn't have." The IFA is a unique tournament not only because of its rich history and tradition, but also because of its format. The setup of the IFA, with only nine bouts per match instead of the usual 27, leads to more competitive and tense bouts since every win or loss is magnified in importance. After the 12 teams have finished fencing each other, all the bouts are tallied and the school that won the most bouts, regardless of its record against the individual teams, is declared the winner. Thus, every bout against every opponent counts. "In this kind of tournament the most important bout is your next one. You can't worry about the past or care about the score," Micahnik said. "You have to concentrate only on the current task to be successful. I think we did that well early and it helped us." The Quakers' mental approach buoyed them to an impressive start as they steamrolled the weaker teams. But as the mid-afternoon fatigue set in, the Quakers began to fall. The Red Storm and Elis hastened their descent by taking seven and eight bouts respectively from Penn. Strong performances from sabrers George Kalmar and Sandy Agashiwala, Alex Edelman in epee and Adam Brown in foil kept the Quakers fighting, but they could not muster up the victories to climb back to the top Saturday. The tournament was not over for those four Quakers, however. On the basis of their solid fencing in the team competition, they earned invitations for the individual portion of the IFAs Sunday. Recently, that is where Penn has found glory in the two-day event. Edelman won the individual epee championship last year, while Kalmar also finished with a medal. Similar results were not to be this year. Though earning the second-best record among epee fencers Saturday, Edelman was only 11th out of the 18-man individual field on Sunday. Kalmar did the best individually of the Penn four, finishing sixth in sabre. There are upcoming opportunities for those performances to be improved. The anticipated Regionals and NCAA tournament, which are almost solely individually-oriented, await next month. But this season's team competition ended on Saturday. As it did, Penn was still left struggling with the malady that has plagued it throughout this season. "For some reason this year, we always seemed to start out with a bang and then taper off at the end," Brown said. "It's been very frustrating."