March 19, 2009
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. – The Irish completed day one of fencing in their quest for an NCAA title at the Multi-Sports Facility on the campus of Penn State. Through four rounds, Notre Dame stands in third place with 47 points. Penn State currently leads with 61 points, while Ohio State is in second with 56 points.
Thursday included rounds 1-4 for the men’s fencers, with each fencer taking part in 14 bouts. Each bout is played to five touches until tomorrow’s medal rounds, which are 15-touch bouts.
Men’s sabre finished first. Leading the way for the Irish was Avery Zuck (Beaverton, Ore.), who notched 10 wins on the day, good for sixth place on the individual sabre standings. Zuck recorded 64 touches on the day and ended with a +19 touch margin. Zuck’s sabre teammate Barron Nydam (Rancho Sante Fe, Calif.) finished in 13th-place with seven victories. Zuck and Nydam began their day by fencing against each other, with Zuck proving victorious, 5-3. Ohio State’s Mike Momtselidze is the overall leader in sabre with 13 wins.
Karol Kostka (Krakow, Poland) and Greg Schoolcraft (San Jose, Calif.) each won five epee bouts on the day. In their match versus each other, Kostka downed Schoolcraft 5-1. Based on touch margin, Kostka is in 19th, while Schoolcraft is 21st overall. Harvard’s Benji Ungar and Wayne State’s Slava Zingerman top the epee table with 11 wins apiece.
Gerek Meinhardt (San Francisco, Calif.) had the best day for the Irish as he posted an impressive 13-1 mark including a thrilling 5-4 win over Ohio State’s Andras Horanyi, last year’s NCAA foil champion. Meinhardt, who topped teammate Enzo Castellani (Keller, Texas) 5-3 to begin his day, is currently in first on the foil leader board. Castellani posted seven wins on the day, good for 11th-place.
The men will try and close the gap with rivals Penn State and Ohio State tomorrow, March 2 when round five gets underway at 9:30 a.m. Updates will be made periodically on und.com and can be accessed at http://www.und.com/sports/c-fenc/spec-rel/031909aab.html. Complete standings and result tables are posted at www.prisedefer.com. The men’s championship bouts are set to begin tomorrow at 2:00 p.m. The championship bouts will be streamed live online via the NCAA’s website at http://www.ncaa.com/sports/c-fenc/ncaa-c-fenc-body.html.
Complete Team Standings:Place/School Total MS MF ME1. Penn State 61 24 23 142. Ohio State 56 25 17 143. Notre Dame 47 17 20 104. Columbia 40 10 16 145. Pennsylvania 38 15 13 106. Stanford 34 16 6 127. St. John's 33 19 5 98. Princeton 29 4 7 189. Harvard 27 6 4 1710. Duke 24 5 15 411. Wayne State 23 4 -- 1912. Air Force 19 -- -- 1913. Yale 18 -- 10 814. UC San Diego 11 1 10 --15. Brandeis 10 4 6 --15. North Carolina 10 10 -- --17. Brown 9 -- 9 --18. NYU 6 3 3 --19. Vassar College 3 3 -- --20. Boston College 2 2 -- --
–ND–