M. Fencing looks to bring 'Little Iron Man' home

With an Ivy League trophy already on its way to Weightman Hall, the Penn men's fencing team looks to add more hardware to its collection this weekend at the International Fencing Association Championships. The Quakers will head North to Boston College this weekend to compete for a slew of trophies -- a six-weapon title (men's and women's scores combined), a three-weapon title, single-weapon trophies and individual trophies. Unlike dual-meet competitions, the IFA's have Penn's fencers competing against only one member on each of the meet's nine other teams -- Princeton, Columbia, Yale, Harvard, Brown, MIT, Brandeis, Boston College, and NYU. Expectations are high for this Penn team. "I think we'll give a decent account of ourselves," Penn coach Dave Micahnik said Monday. "We need the people who are capable of winning bouts to do what they're capable of." Last season the Red and Blue took home the prestigious Little Iron Man trophy for being the nation's top foil squad. Junior Jeff Breen also took home a trophy as the top individual foil. With all four members of last year's foil squad returning, the Quakers are favorites to retake the Little Iron Man. "The foil team trophy is a very prestigious thing," Micahnik said Monday. "I think we're capable of winning it again, but it depends on how everybody's fencing." But the Quakers' foil team will be missing one essential piece of its puzzle this weekend -- senior captain Yale Cohen, who will be competing in the Grand Prix World Cup Tournament in China. Even without Cohen, Penn still claims arguably the best foil squad at the meet, with starters Breen and Andy Radu and sophomore Stephen Gavalas. This will not be the first team Gavalas will have to step up in his captain's absence. He fenced brilliantly against Princeton, going 3-0, when Cohen was absent from the lineup due to food poisoning. Even with the strong contributions of Gavalas, this competition will not be a cakewalk for the foil squad. "Their strongest challenge is probably going to be Columbia," Micahnik said on Monday. The Lions are the only team in the competition to have defeated Penn's foil team this season, winning 4-5 on Feb. 22. At last year's competition, the Quakers finished second in the six-weapon competition to St. John's. The Red Storm have withdrawn from this year's IFA's for undisclosed reasons. The Red and Blue also figure to compete for the three-weapon title. Penn has already defeated every team at this meet this season in dual-meet competition, with the exception of last week's loss to Columbia. A team win at the IFA's would give the Red and Blue some much needed momentum before next week's NCAA Regionals competitions.

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