W. Fencing takes part in historic exhibition

Without trophies or awards to take home at this year's exhibitional Intercollegiate Fencing Association championships, the Penn women's fencing team appeared slightly lackluster in this past weekend's competition. A 101-year tradition, the IFA competition has been strictly for men's teams until this year, when a women's exhibitional competition was held in anticipation of the inaugural official tournament next year. This year's IFAs was different than the men's, with only a team competition and no individual tournament. The Quakers showed up for their competition appearing slightly off-key but managed to emerge in second place overall in the seven-team competition. As usual, the epee squad continued its dominance, coasting through most of the bouts and finishing second in its weapon class -- short of first by one bout. Sophomore Liz Cornfield and freshman Olivia Leon both finished in first place in their respective draws, combining for a 9-1 record. "As a squad we were very good," Cornfield said. "We remained consistent all day." On the other side, however, top-seeded freshman epee Anastasia Gunzburg did not perform as well as expected and didn't place in the top three of her strip. Gunzburg was coming off a tough loss last weekend in competition at the Junior Olympics in San Jose, Calif., and had hoped to perform her best at NYU this weekend. The foil squad, like Gunzburg, also failed to perform its best during the competition. Finishing fifth overall, the foil squad appeared to be using the IFAs as a mere warm-up for next week's Regionals at the University of North Carolina. Top-seeded junior co-captain Megumi Sakae dropped one or two bouts she possibly should not have, and third-seeded co-captain Sarah Johns was sick Sunday. "We seemed pretty blase about the whole thing," Johns said. "We were looking ahead to next weekend's regional competition." Another factor was although it was a team competition, the pressure atmosphere was lacking. Also, with a week off from competition going into the meet, the team may have just been out of form. "The week off definitely hurt the team," Micahnik said. "There's definitely not as much intensity in practice, and it breaks the routine and changes the pace." Johns also felt if this competition was not exhibitional, the foil squad may have tried harder. After being combined with the epee's astounding success, the foil squad performed well enough to put the team into second place overall behind Columbia. Micahnik was not pleased however. "I'm not happy with being anything less than first. I'll regard it as a good training for next weekend," he said.