St. John's University Athletics
St. John's Fencing Takes Third at NCAA Championships
3/23/2003 12:00:00 AM | Men's Fencing
JAMAICA, N.Y. -- Led by a pair of second place finishes on the mens side and one on the womens side, the St. Johns University fencing team finished in third place at the NCAA Championships, which finished on Sunday afternoon at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
The Championships, which are typically conducted over four days, were reduced to two days of competition due to inclement weather in the Colorado region, where as much as six feet of snow fell this week.
Notre Dame, which led after the first rounds of competition on Saturday, held on for the win with 182 points, tying for first (with St. Johns) in the mens competition with 94 points, and finishing in third on the womens side with 88 points to win the combined team championship.
Penn State finished second with 179 points, followed by St. Johns (171), Ohio State (167) and Columbia, with 113, round out the top-five.
The Red Storm were in second place after the first day of competition. They tied for first in the mens competition, tallying 90 points (winning the sabre with 40 bout wins and taking second in the foil with 35), and finished in fourth place on the womens side, with 77 points (winning the foil competition).
The men were led by three-time senior All-American Ivan Lee (Brooklyn, N.Y.), who finished in second place after losing the gold medal match to Adam Crompton of Ohio State, 15-13. Junior Serhiy Isayenko (The Ukraine) finished in fourth place, winning 17 points.
Freshman Nitai Kfir (Simtat Haveredy, Israel) finished in second place in the foil after losing the gold medal match to Non Panchan of Penn State, 15-14. Junior Anton Gurevich (Ashkelohn, Israel) took fourth place in the epee with 20 bout victories and sophomore Arpad Horvath (Budapest, Hungary), the defending NCAA Champion in the event, finished in sixth place.
On the womens side, sophomore Julia Gelman (Brooklyn, N.Y.), who won the bronze medal last year, took a step up, winning the silver in her second attempt. She lost the gold medal match to Alexis Jemal of Rutgers, 15-12. Classmate Christina Crane (Madison, Ga.) finished in eighth place.
Senior Irina Khouade (Moscow Region, Russia) finished in fourth place in the foil, while classmate Liz Thottam (Beverly Hills, Calif.) placed 16th overall. Senior Arlene Stevens (Fairport, N.Y.) lost the bronze medal match in the epee and finished in fourth place with 17 bout victories.
The third place showing at the NCAA Championships is the ninth-straight top-five finish for St. Johns, and the eighth under head coach Yury Gelman. This years graduating senior class Lee on the mens side, with Khouade, Stevens and Thottam on the womens side will leave one of the most impressive records in school history, compiling a combined 98-16 record (53-6 for the women; 48-10 for the men), winning the programs first-ever NCAA Championship, capturing two Intercollegiate Fencing Association Championship titles and placing among the top-five in the NCAA Championships each of the last four years.
