St. John's University Athletics
Fencing Prepares For 2006 NCAA Championships
3/13/2006 12:00:00 AM | Fencing
March 13, 2006
QUEENS, N.Y. -
The men's and women's fencing team will head to Houston, Texas for the 2006 NCAA Fencing Championships hosted by Rice University, March 16-19. Currently, the St. John's women's fencing team is ranked fourth in the nation while the men are ranked fifth.
The Red Storm qualified 11 out of 12 possible candidates to compete at the championships. The only other school to qualify more was Penn State with 12.
The women's team will be lead by Erszebet Garay, who finished fourth overall in 2005. The senior will compete with the foil where she has been dominant all season, amassing 45 victories with only three losses. Katia Larchanka will also compete in the women's foil.
Freshman Olga Ovtchinnikova will anchor the women's squad in the sabre along with teammate Kasia Wieronski. Ovtchinnikova has had an impressive first season with the Red Storm and heads to Texas with a 39-6 record. Weironski recently went undefeated against Rutgers in three bouts.
Rounding out the women's qualifiers are sophomores Joanna Guy and Reka Szele in the epee. Guy finished 10th at last season's NCAA Championships and Szele just missed earning All-America honors, coming in 13th.
On the men's side, the team will take five qualifiers along for the trip. Men's captain Benjamin Bratton hopes to return to his freshman form where he took second place overall. Last season he rounded out the men's team finishing tenth. So far in the 2006 season, Bratton has 27 wins and has also spent time competing internationally. Classmate Adam Rodney will make his first trip to NCAA and will compete with the epee.
Sam Wunderlich returned to the team after taking the fall semester off and has been solid on the strip ever since. While only competing in two tournaments, he has taken 11 victories.
The men's sabre looks to be the most dominant weapon for the men's squad as Luther Clement and late addition Nikita Tsukhlo will represent the Red Storm. Clement has more than 25 wins this season and has also spent time representing the U.S. internationally while Tsukhlo was recently undefeated against Rutgers.
Fencers will compete in a round-robin of 24 fencers in five-touch bouts. After the round-robin, the top four fencers in each event will fence direct elimination 15-touch bouts for first, second, third and fourth place. Absolute ties for the seeding will be broken as follows: for positions one through three, by a coin toss; for position four, by a fence-off.
An institution's place finish in the championships will be based on points earned by each individual. A team will be awarded one point for each victory by its student-athletes for the duration of the championships.
For the most up to date information on the Red Storm at the 2006 NCAA Championships, visit www.redstormsports.com.
- Red Storm-
