Evan Prochniak named National Fencer of the Week

Men’s fencing is on a bit of a roll, to say the least, and the unbeaten team owes no small amount of its success to junior sabre Evan Prochniak.

Last week, collegefencing360.com awarded him National Fencer of the Week, after he went 9-1 at the Penn State invitational and scored the winning point in the Quakers’ epic 14-13 victory over the then-No. 1 Nittany Lions.

That was before the Penn men trampled over all five of their opponents at the Eric Sollee Invitational this Saturday. Against NYU, its most talented opponent, Prochniak and the rest of the team’s sabre trio went undefeated.

The kid is good. How good? This year, he has fenced 25 matches against 10 different colleges. And of the those 25 bouts, he has lost two. In fencing, the first team to win 14 bouts gets the win. So far, Penn has gotten there easily, with three exceptions — Sacred Heart, Duke and then-No. 1 Penn State. (The last coaches’ poll came out Jan. 19, but, given that the Quakers are the only undefeated team in the country, the Red and Blue may be at the top of that list when it comes out next.)

In other words, if Prochniak had lost a single extra bout in any of those matches, if he had not gone 2-1, 3-0, then 2-1, including his clutch battle with PSU freshman Sean Moran, the Quakers would not be 16-0. They would have a not-as-impressive 13-3 record. And the numbers don’t account for the leadership the two-time All-American and NCAA semifinalist provides as “a leading contender for the 2012 NCAA title,” as collegefencing360.com calls him.

Next week at the Ivy Championships, Prochniak and the rest of the men’s fencing squad will go up against the Princeton Tigers, ranked second in the most recent coaches’ poll. The team has five sabres — a freshman, three sophomores and one senior.

The Tigers’ sabre squad is competing well, but not Penn well. At the Northwestern Duals two weeks ago, the Princeton men’s fencing team lost its first two matches of the season. In both of those battles, they lost, 15-12, and in both of them, sabre made the difference, posting 3-6 records. The team has zero juniors who fence at the position. Four years ago, the head coach over in New Jersey would have been smart to snag Evan Prochniak.

Here is the text from collegefencing360.com:

University of Pennsylvania junior men's sabreist Evan Prochniak (Hudson, N.H.) – a leading contender for the 2012 NCAA title, after reaching the semifinals a year ago – has been named national fencer of the week for Jan. 23-29, 2012, as presented by CollegeFencing360.com (CF360). Prochniak leads the way among the six CF360 Primetime Performers of the Week for college fencing. Brown freshman men's foilist Barrett Weiss (Barrington, R.I.) has been selected by CF360 as the national rooke of the week.

Prochniak's 9-1 record at the Penn State Invitational led the way for the #7 Quakers men, now 11-0 for the season. The two-time All-American and 2011 NCAA semifinalist collected a pair of key wins in Penn's win over top-ranked PSU, including a 5-4 battle with All-American Adrian Bak and a 5-3 win over Sean Moran that produced the final 14-13 margin. Prochniak – who also went 2-0 vs. #8 Duke and suffered his only loss vs. three-time NCAA semifinalist Alex Ochocki (3-5) – now owns a 40-8 season record and is 87-15 in regular-season action during his three-year career with the Quakers.