Fencing finishes eighth at Nationals

Despite sending only seven fencers out of a possible 12, the Quakers had a strong showing at Stanford. Even though the Penn men's and women's fencing teams only qualified a combined seven fencers for the NCAA Championships, the Quakers pulled off an impressive eighth-place finish out of 28 schools at the nationals, held at Stanford this past Thursday through Sunday. This performance marks the Quakers' third consecutive top-10 placement. With 79 total victories, the Red and Blue trailed Yale and Columbia by 22- and 30-point gaps, respectively. With 175 total victories, Penn State took the championship for the sixth year in a row. Notre Dame and St. John's tied for second place, each earning 171 points. Many schools that finished ahead of Penn qualified more fencers for the competition. A school can send a maximum of 12 fencers to NCAAs -- two fencers per weapon for both its men's and women's teams. Because a team's final placement depends on the total number of victories from both the men's and women's teams, Penn was at a disadvantage having only seven fencers in the mix. Penn junior David Cohen recorded the Quakers' highest finish, taking sixth place in the foil event out of 24 fencers. Though Cohen believes he fenced well, he is disappointed that he did not become a first team All-American -- an honor awarded to fencers who finish in the top four of their weapon. Because of the scoring system --which first takes into account the number of bouts won and then the number of touches both made and received -- if Cohen had won just one more bout, he would have recorded a top-four finish. Hindering Cohen, however, was that he was not fencing under ideal conditions. In addition to going into the championships with a hamstring injury, Cohen took a blow in the head on Saturday from the foil of Stanford's Felix Reichling -- who ended up winning the championship -- and had to get stitches. "It didn't hurt," Cohen said. "But it was a pain because my eyebrows were taped up and I couldn't blink easily." To make matters worse, Cohen became ill later that night and returned to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with esophagitis. Despite all this, Cohen managed to go 7-2 in his bouts on Sunday. Cohen's brother, Penn freshman foilist Yale Cohen, recorded a ninth-place finish. Also placing ninth was junior sabre Mike Golia. Last year, Golia had the highest Penn finish, coming in fourth. "He lost a couple of close bouts," Penn coach Dave Micahnik said. "He wasn't at the top of his game." In the epee event, Penn freshman Javier Garcia-Albea finished 10th. "I lost a lot of bouts I should have won," he said. "I don't really care about placement. I care about winning bouts I can win. I had a lot of close bouts I just didn't clinch." Penn junior epeeist Charles Hamann finished 12th, slipping six places from his finish of a year ago. In the women's tournament, Penn freshman Kim Linton finished 18th. Though Linton feels she lost easy bouts she could have won, she did accomplish her season goal of qualifying for the NCAAs. She fell short on her NCAA goal of making All-American, though. "I didn't fence smart enough to do that," Linton said. "When that didn't happen, I just made that my goal for next year." Fellow freshman Lauren Staudinger, the only other female from Penn to qualify for NCAAs, finished 22nd. Micahnik notes that for freshmen who are new to the NCAA experience, the championships' atmosphere can be rather intimidating. "To have the best in one place, at one time, is pretty heavy," he said. "Less experienced fencers sometimes get tense and nervous and they over-try, but the experience will be good for the future because every time out you learn things." Micahnik predicts the Quakers will do better in the future. "We have a good history of coming away from this with trophies," he said. "The Penn standard is higher, so we want to get back up there. We have higher aspirations."

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