Jan. 20, 2017
By Joanne Norell
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – The University of Notre Dame fencing program will face one of its toughest tests of the season when it competes at two of the premier fencing events of the season this weekend in New York City. The Irish will compete Saturday at the St. John’s Invitational, then take on equally stiff competition Sunday at the NYU Invitational.
WHAT: St. John’s Invitational
WHERE: Taffner Field House | Queens, N.Y.
WHEN: January 21, 2017
WHAT: NYU Invitational
WHERE: Columbia University | New York, N.Y.
WHEN: January 22, 2017
TWITTER: @NDFencing
St. John’s Invitational
Notre Dame will kick off the weekend Saturday at the St. John’s Invitational at Taffner Field House. The schedule for Saturday is as follows:
10 a.m. – Notre Dame vs. Columbia
11:15 a.m. – Notre Dame vs. Penn State
12:30 p.m. – Notre Dame vs. Harvard
2:15 p.m. – Notre Dame vs. St. John’s
3:30 p.m. – Notre Dame vs. Ohio State
NYU Invitational
The Irish will regroup on Sunday for the NYU Invitational held at Columbia University. The schedule for Sunday is as follows:
9 a.m. – Notre Dame vs. St. John’s
10:30 a.m. – Notre Dame vs. NYU
Noon – Notre Dame vs. Columbia
2 p.m. – Notre Dame vs. Wayne State
Elite Competition
Notre Dame will fence in nine dual meets against seven different opponents over the course of the weekend. Of those foes, five finished in the top seven at the 2016 NCAA Championships. The Irish will twice fence against reigning national champion Columbia, as well as last year’s fourth-place finisher St. John’s
2016 NCAA Championship Results
1. Columbia/Barnard*
2. Ohio State*
3. Princeton
4. St. John’s*
5. Notre Dame
6. Penn State*
7. Harvard*
13. NYU*
14. Wayne State*
*St. John’s Invitational or NYU Invitational opponent
Last Time Out
Irish fencers last competed at the Penn State Open, an individual competition where Irish fencers collected three gold medals and four podium slots. Senior Lee Kiefer snagged women’s foil gold while sophomore Amanda Sirico snared the top spot in women’s epee. Sophomore Axel Kiefer also took gold in men’s foil, and freshman Zachary Zeller placed third in men’s epee.
In their first dual competition of the season at the Penn Elite Invitational on November 5, the Irish women went 4-1, defeating Temple, Yale, Penn and Cornell and falling to Princeton. The men’s side also went 4-1, earning wins over NJIT, Princeton, Yale and North Carolina and dropping to Penn.
— ND —
Joanne Norell, athletics communications assistant director at the University of Notre Dame, has been part of the Fighting Irish athletics communications team since 2014 and coordinates communications efforts for the Notre Dame women’s soccer, men’s tennis, women’s tennis and fencing programs. Norell is a 2011 graduate of Purdue University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in mass communication, and earned her master’s degree in sports industry management from Georgetown University in 2013.