St. John's University Athletics
Red Storm Fencing Open Season This Weekend
2/25/2004 12:00:00 AM | Women's Fencing
Jan 10, 2004
JAMAICA, N.Y. -- Gone are some of the names from the past that most people will remember. St. John's University four-time All-Americans Ivan Lee and Arlene Stevens were lost to graduation, as well as 2001 NCAA Championship team members Irina Khouade and Liz Thottam.
They were the last pieces to a four-year period in which the St. John's men's and women's fencing teams combined to post a 98-6 record, win the NCAA title, an Intercollegiate Fencing Association Championship and post four top-five finishes at the NCAA Championships.
Those losses aside, ninth-year head coach Yury Gelman is excited about the 2003-04 campaign. St. John's opens the regular season this weekend with matches in Boston against Brandeis, MIT, Boston College and Brown.
The Red Storm enter the season with question marks surrounding their depth and who can replace Stevens and Khouade in the women's epee and the foil. He also knows that he's got strength back in all three weapons on the men's side and has one of the most talented group of fencers in women's saber in the country.
"I feel confident that we'll have success on the men's side because we have some very talented individuals at the top of each weapon," Gelman said. "We need to get our younger kids to show they are ready for this level."
Junior Arpad Horvath (Budapest, Hungary) and sophomores Nitai Kfir (Simtat Haveredy, Israel) and Sergey Isayenko (Cherkassy, Ukraine) will lead the men's squad. Horvath is a two-time All-American in the epee and finished in sixth at the NCAAs last year. Kfir, in his first season at St. John's last year, finished in second in the foil, while Isayenko finished in fourth at the NCAAs.
Leading the way on the women's side will be a talented and experienced group in the saber. Juniors Christina Crane (Atlanta, Ga.) and Julia Gelman (Brooklyn, N.Y.) both earned All-American honors last season, while sophomore Kasia Wieronski (Warren, N.J.) enjoyed a solid freshman campaign. Crane finished with a 37-5 individual record last season and took eighth at both the NCAA Regionals and the NCAA Championships, while Gelman also went 37-5 and finished in third at the NCAA Regionals and was the runner-up at the NCAAs. Wieronski went 32-10 during the regular season and finished in second place at the NCAA Regionals. With that trio, the Red Storm will enter the season with, perhaps, the deepest talent in this weapon in the country.
Gelman will turn to a young cast of newcomers to help offset the losses from last season's team. Freshmen Amy Delahanty (Louisville, Ky.) and Erzsebet Garay (Budapest, Hungary), should contribute in the women's foil, while freshmen Benjamin Bratton (New York, N.Y.) and Samuel Wunderlich (Louisville, Ky.) should help in the epee and foil, respectively.
