W. Fencing goes off to Boston to face champs

As the members of the Penn women's fencing team prepare to travel this weekend to Harvard, they have more on their mind than just defeating a league opponent. Penn, currently 5-2 overall and 1-1 in the Ivy League, is playing the current league leader, Harvard, which is 8-0 overall and an impressive 3-0 in league play. Penn is playing at Malkin Athletic Center in Cambridge, Mass., at 10 a.m. Saturday. Penn is coming off a tight loss, 18-14, last week to New York University and is hoping to get back on the wining track before they play host to a slew of league teams, including Cornell, the weekend of February 22. Penn started off the season with wins over St. John's and Temple and wants to regain the fervor it once possessed. While Harvard is currently undefeated, this has not vanquished the Quakers' hopes of avenging last year's defeat to the Crimson. One advantage Penn no longer retains over Harvard, however, is experience in the foil matches. Penn currently has a lot of return fencers on the epee squad and has a relatively young foil squad. While this concerns Penn coach Dave Micahnik entering the weekend's meet, he is still confident that the Quakers can win. "Foil is the stronger of Harvard's two squads this year, but our young foilers should manage to achieve enough victories," Micahnik said. "These victories will allow our more experienced epee squad in winning enough duels to win the meet." Meredith Galto, a sophomore and recently converted foiler and now a member of the Quakers epee squad, shares the coaches sentiments. "Even though Harvard has an extremely good foil squad, their mediocrity in their epee squad should allow us to gain an advantage in the overall meet," Galto said. While Penn's foil squad consists only of freshmen and sophomores, it has shown improvement with every match. One of the bright spots of Penn's young foil team has been the recent fencing of freshman Margo Katz. In Penn's last meet with NYU, while the foil squad did not fare well, Katz posted a personal best, undefeated 4-0 in her individual duels. In a twist of fate, the Short Hills, N.J., native will face her sister Jill, a member of the Harvard team. Her domination of opponents of late should bode well for her in her upcoming duels against Harvard and more specifically her older sister. The individual rivalry should be interesting between the sisters but the match will ultimately be decided by who exerts more effort, according to Quakers captain Elizabeth Cornfield. "Confidence and giving 100 percent should carry the team through what will most definitely be a tight match," Cornfield said. "However, the experience of our epee fencers should carry the team." If the team retains its positive attitude and heeds the advice of the team captain they hope to be able to pull off an upset over their undefeated league rival Harvard.