St. John's University Athletics
St. John's University
NCAA Championships
St. John's Finishes Third in NCAA Fencing Championships
3/20/2005 12:00:00 AM | Fencing
March 20, 2005
Queens, NY - It's a sport that most people think about only when the Olympics are upon us. It's not one that college sports fans think of automatically. But when it comes to college fencing, the names of four schools typically come to mind.
One of those four is St. John's University. And the 12-member contingent of student-athletes representing the University at the 2005 NCAA Fencing Championships in Houston, Texas this weekend added to the legacy of Red Storm fencing. Led by an incredible performance from sophomore Erzsebet Garay (Budapest, Hungary), the St. John's fencing team combined for 162 points to finish third overall.
Notre Dame captured the team championship, coming from behind to beat Ohio State. The Fighting Irish won the title with 173 bout victories, two ahead of the Buckeyes. St. John's finished 11 bouts behind Notre Dame in third place, while Penn State finished fourth with 145.
For the Red Storm, it is the program's 11th-straight top-five finish at the NCAA Championships, all under Head Coach Yury Gelman. St. John's finished fourth last year and has placed at least in the top three in five of the last six seasons.
"We could have done a little bit better, but I'm very pleased with the performance," Gelman said. "For us to have won in this situation, we needed to do very well in all weapons and sometimes you can't get everything to fall into place. I didn't count on (sophomore Nijmy) Cadet helping us out as much, and we got some unexpected help on the women's side as well.
"Overall, I'm very happy with our result. The kids really supported one another and helped each other. This was a terrific team performance."
The Red Storm were in second place through each of the first three days of competition. The first two days of the NCAAs covered the men's competition, where the St. John's men placed second overall. On Saturday, during the first day of women's competition, the Red Storm tallied 50 bout wins, and entered Sunday's final round in second, trailing Ohio State, 142-134, with Notre Dame a close third place with 129 points, helped by 59 victories in the third round.
Garay won 19 of 23 bouts during the round-robin competition and finished in fourth place overall. "Erzsebet was amazing," Gelman said. "I think she was disappointed to finish fourth, but she dominated her bouts and I think she was just exhausted by the time the medal round started. She was a huge help for us."
In the sabre, senior Christina Crane (Madison, GA) placed 10th overall and junior Kasia Wieronski (Warren, NJ) placed 12th overall. It was the fourth-straight All-American honor for Crane, who closed out her St. John's career in impressive fashion. Wieronski, competing in her first NCAA Championship, took home her first All-American honor.
Freshman Katia Larchanka (Minsk, Belarus) placed 13th overall in the foil. In the epee, freshmen Joanna Guy (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) and Reka Szele (Budapest, Hungary) placed 10th and 13th, respectively.
Overall during the NCAA Championships, St. John's fencers earned seven All-American honors, four on the men's side and three on the women's side. On the men's side, All-American honors went to senior Sergey Isayenko (Cherkassy, Ukraine), who won the sabre; senior Arpad Horvath (Budapest, Hungary), who finished in fifth in the epee, and sophomore Ben Bratton (New York, NY), who placed 10th in the epee; and senior Nitai Kfir (Simtat-Haveredy, Israel), who finished in fifth in the foil.
Since 1995, St. John's fencers have combined to earn 61 All-American honors. Horvath and Crane closed out careers this weekend that saw them each earn four All-American honors. Isayenko's NCAA title in the sabre marked the ninth NCAA Individual Championship for a men's fencer at St. John's since 1997, and the 12th overall.
Players Mentioned
