Katz, W. Fencing succumb to Harvard

As the Quakers entered the meet on Saturday against Harvard they had aspirations of ending the Crimson's hopes of an undefeated season. However, the Crimson had other ideas in mind. Harvard (9-0, 4-0 Ivy League) outlasted Penn in all of the tight matches and cruised to a 21-11 victory over the Quakers. While the score indicates that Penn (5-2, 1-2) was easily dismissed by the Crimson the reality is that Quakers fought much harder than the score would indicate. Penn knew coming into the match that Harvard had a relatively experienced foil squad compared with the Quakers, who sported a foil team consisting of all freshmen and sophomores. The Crimson bludgeoned Penn by the score of 14-2 in the foil matches in large part because of the Quakers' lack of experience. "In almost all of the foil matches we lost by one or two points," Penn coach Dave Micahnik said. "I feel that if we were to have these same duels next year that we will definitely be the team that comes out on top. With just a little more experience our foil team could become quite good." The sentiment expressed by the coach could not have held more true than in the human interest story of the meet, Katz versus Katz. As the Quakers' Margo Katz fenced her older sister Jill, a member of the Harvard squad, she initially jumped out to a quick lead. However, her fury began to die down and her sister started to take control as the duel raged on. The inexperience showed as Margo began to cry out to her coach. "How do I beat my sister?" asked Margo. "Even though I told her exactly what to do she was unable to execute it," said Micahnik. "The bout had taken its toll on her and she wasn't the same fencer [at the end]." Margo went on to lose the match by one point(5-4) and it was evident that she had been drained. She was only able to win one bout (1-3) the rest of the meet, and did not dominate opponents with the same flair she has demonstrated in previous weeks. While the young foilers did not fair well, the older epee squad managed to achieve a victory on their side of the meet (9-7). Even though Penn's strong fencing did not have a great effect on the overall outcome of the match, it should help to rebuild their confidence for future meets. In the last two meets, the normally solid epee squad has lost to New York University and the University of North Carolina. "The victory by the epee squad was not surprising because of the amount of experience and skill we have on that team," Micahnik said. "The momentum from this victory should help us in our coming meet with Princeton."