Day one of the NCAA Fencing Championships wasn't a banner event for Penn men's fencing. But if the lows were low, the highs were definitely high.
Ron Berkowsky headlined the afternoon, going 12-2 in foil for a second-place finish in the event. The only foilist to have a better outing was Columbia's Kurt Getz, who finished at 13-1.
Berkowsky provided Getz with his only loss, soundly defeating him 5-1. But the Penn senior slipped up in two matches, losing to Ohio State's Andras Horanyi (11-3) and Columbia's Scott Sugimoto (10-4).
At sabre, Andrew Bielen turned in a solid 9-5 effort. And the Quakers' only men's epee representative, Ben Wieder, managed an 8-6 record, putting him only three victories off the pace.
Things got a lot worse from there, though. Penn's other two representatives, Matthew Kolasa (sabre) and Michael Galligan (foil), combined for only nine wins out of 28 bouts.
Each weapon group will begin sets of nine more matches tomorrow, with the gold medal matches coming in the late afternoon.
As a team, Penn placed sixth after the day's events, second in the Ivies but well behind a logjam at the top.
Columbia, which won the league championship at the second Ivy Round Robin last month, is in first with 56 points.
St. John's, Notre Dame and Penn State are all within four points of that mark.
Penn has 38 points, coming out just on top of Harvard's 36.
The women will begin play in a similar format starting on Saturday and ending Sunday afternoon.
- Sebastien Angel
