Teams: Women's Fencing: Press Releases

Thursday, March 8, 2007

TUFTS HOSTS NCAA REGIONAL FENCING CHAMPIONSHIPS ON SUNDAY

MEDFORD -- Tufts University will host the 2007 NCAA Northeast Regional Fencing Championships at the Gantcher Family Sports and Convocation Center on Sunday (March 11).

The NCAA Regionals are an individual competition at which fencers compete with an opportunity to qualify for the NCAA Championships to be held in Madison, New Jersey on March 22-25. Although finishes at the Regional are a major part of the formula that determines selection to the NCAA's, it is not the only factor. NCAA selections are based on performances in dual meets throughout the season and competition in the Regionals.

Men's and women's bouts will be held on Sunday in the epee, foil and sabre weapons. Eight NCAA qualifiers and two at-large bids will be awarded per weapon, with the exception of men's epee in which seven will qualify for the NCAA's.

Sunday's championship event is one of four NCAA Regionals occurring across the country this weekend. UC-San Diego, Notre Dame and Fairleigh Dickinson are the other three hosting institutions. The Northeast Regional draws some of the country's top competitors from some of the most renowned schools in the world to Tufts. Sunday's competitors represent Boston College, Brandeis University, Brown University, City College of New York, Columbia University, Cornell University, Harvard University, Hunter College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New York University, Sacred Heart University, St. John's University, Tufts University, Vassar College, Wellesley College, Yale University and Yeshiva University.

Forty women will compete in epee, with St John's freshman Tanya Novakovska from Ukraine as the top seed. Harvard sophomore Maria Larsson from Stockholm is the defending Northeast champion in the event. In women's foil, St. John's also has the top seed out of 39 competitors with sophomore Monika Golebiewski from Germany. Harvard junior Emily Cross from New York City won last year, but has taken the spring semester off to train for the 2008 Olympics. The Red Storm of Saint John's make a clean sweep of the top seeds in the women's events with sabre #1 Olga Ovtchinnikova, a freshman from Toronto. An outstanding women's sabre field of 36 also includes Columbia junior Emily Jacobson from Atlanta, who was the NCAA sabre champion in 2005, the NCAA runner-up last year and is the #3 seed in Sunday's event, and Columbia junior Danielle Gordet from Wellesley, Massachusetts, the surprise 2005 regional champion in sabre. Columbia's strength in the event also includes Emma Baratta, a 2006 graduate, who was the Northeast sabre title winner last season.

On the men's side, Harvard boasts all three defending champions. Benji Ungar from the Bronx, now a junior, won the regional epee title last year and went on to win the NCAA national championship. Sophomore foilist Kai Itameri-Kinter from North Attleboro, Massachusetts is also a returning champion. Senior Tim Hagamen from New York City won the Northeast sabre championship for Harvard last March and placed fourth at the NCAA Championships. Hagamen is the only top seed at Sunday's regional event for Harvard, topping the 32-man sabre competition. Columbia sophomore Dwight Smith from Elmont, New York is the #1 seed in epee (37 total), while St. John's junior and 2004 NCAA runner-up Benjamin Bratton from New York City is also in the field as the #3 seed. St. John's senior Henry Kennard from Concord, Massachusetts is the top seed out of 32 in the men's foil. Also competing in foil is 2006 NCAA bronze medalist Scott Sugimoto from Columbia and Pacific Palisades, California.

St. John's, Columbia and Harvard look to dominate Sunday's competition, but there's always the potential for a surprise. The only other schools with top five seeds in Sunday's competition include Yale (#5 women's epee Rebecca Moss) and NYU (#5 women's foil Zoe Baumgardner). The highest seeded competitor for the host Tufts University women's team is sophomore Christine Lee from Needham, Massachusetts, an NCAA qualifier last year who is ranked 17th in foil.

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