St. John's University Athletics
St. John's Fencing Finishes Fourth at NCAA Championships
3/28/2004 12:00:00 AM | Men's Fencing
March 28, 2004
Jamaica, N.Y. - Led by one individual national champion, one national runner-up and a third-place finish, the St. John's men's and women's fencing teams combined to finish in fourth place at the NCAA Championships, which concluded on Sunday at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts.
Ohio State won 97 bouts to tally an NCAA record 194 points en route to its first national championship in the sport, outscoring Penn State, which finished in second place with 160. Defending champion Notre Dame placed third with 153 points, followed by St. John's (149) and Columbia (146).
The Red Storm men's team tallied a tournament-high 109 points.
St. John's was guaranteed at least one national champion when junior Arpad Horvath (Budapest, Hungary) and freshman Benjamin Bratton (New York, N.Y.) each won semifinal matches in the epee. Horvath, who won the 2002 NCAA title, beat Bratton, 15-7, to become the third fencer in St. John's history to win two individual titles (joining Keeth Smart and Ivan Lee, two-time winners in the sabre). Horvath topped Ohio State junior Denis Tolkachev, 11-10, in overtime in the semifinals, while Bratton beat Notre Dame's Michal Sobieraj, 15-13.
Ohio State sophomore Adam Crompton beat St. John's junior Sergey Isayenko (Cherkassy, Ukraine) in the sabre to win the national title, 15-14. Senior Darren Whittmer (West Bloomfield, Mich.) placed 10th overall, earning All-American honors.
In the foil, sophomore Nitai Kfir (Simtat Haveredy, Israel), the top-seeded fencer in the weapon, lost to Yale's Cory Werk, 15-12, in the semifinals, but came back to defeat Columbia's Jeremy Sinkin, 15-12, to win the bronze medal. It was the second-straight medal finish for Kfir, who finished in second place last year. Freshman Henry Kennard (Concord, Mass.) placed ninth overall with eight bout wins.
The Red Storm women tallied 40 points during the first two days of competition, winning 20 bouts in the saber and 29 in the foil, for an eighth-place standing at the time.
The fourth-place finish marked the 10th-straight year the St. John's fencing program has earned a top-five finish at the NCAA Championships.
Complete results from the NCAA National Collegiate Fencing Championships can be found on the web at: http://www.brandeis.edu/ncaafencing.