M. Fencing looking to repeat

The Quakers will attempt to defend their league title without several key fencers. If there's one thing harder than winning the Ivy League title, it is keeping it. And that is exactly what the Penn men's fencing team plans to do. Last year, the Quakers finished their season with an impressive 10-4 overall record, going 4-0 in the Ivy League. These meets, however, were not all easy wins -- the Quakers' Ivy victories included intense 14-13 wins over both Columbia and Yale. "Last year's team was better than the result," Penn coach Dave Micahnik said. "If we had all our personnel all the time, all season, the result would have been better. But we had the quality, we had the depth." Micahnik refers to the frequent absences of team foil stars Cliff Bayer and David Cohen, both of whom missed several Penn meets because of conflicts with individual training and competition. While 1999 IFA champion Cohen is expected to compete regularly for the Quakers again, Bayer -- who is currently the 11th-ranked foilist in the world -- is taking the school year off to train for the 2000 Olympic Games. Micahnik believes this year's talented foil squad will make up for the Bayer's absence but admits "it would have been nice to have the best in the country out there." Returning with one year of college competition under their belt are sophomores Blake Miller, Jim Benson, Eric Epstein and second-team All-Ivy Scott Eriksen. Although last year's No. 1 Quakers epeeist Charles Hammond is currently studying abroad in Melbourne, Australia, he is scheduled to return in time for the season opener. Also currently absent from practice is foilist Yaron Roth. Last year, the first team All-Ivy junior suffered a shoulder injury that kept him from competing in the NCAAs. Micahnik predicts that Roth's rehab will be swift and expects him to be ready to compete this season. This year's team will be competing without sabres Jeffrey Allen and Alexander Platt and epeeist John Wright, all of whom graduated in May. The sabres, however, still have a great leader in junior Michael Golia, who posted an impressive 56-16 record last year on his way to first team All-America status. The loss of the seniors should more than be accommodated for by the addition of a whopping eight freshman. Among the strong recruiting class are epeeist Javier Garcia-Albea, sabre Brent Palatsky and foilist Yale Cohen, David Cohen's little brother. "We grew up training together," David Cohen said. "Both of us feed off each other when we fence against other people." Senior captain and sabre David Liu believes this year's team is more talented than last year's and feels the team has a good shot at winning the Ivy title again. Liu acknowledges the pressure that winning the Ivy title -- the first Quakers men's title won in 16 years -- imposed upon the team. "[Winning the Ivy] changes your whole attitude," he said. "Now that we've done it, we have to maintain our Ivy standing. If you win it two years in a row, people don't think it's a fluke. It shows them that we are the champions." Both Micahnik and Liu predict that the Princeton and Columbia dual meets, which will take place in February, will be this season's toughest challenges. This weekend, Penn State will host a preseason meet in which the Quakers will compete on a voluntary basis. The Penn State Open is an individual meet and will not go on the participating teams' records, lessening the meet's significance. "It's an important benchmark to see how we're doing but it doesn't merit the emphasis that the season does," Micahnik said. "It's a chance to learn about ourselves and move to the next step."