It will be the first NCAA competition for the men's and women's fencing teams in over a month, but both feel confident that tomorrow's matchups will produce good results.

"We've worked hard and we know where we're coming from," Suzie Paxton said.

The match begins at 9 tomorrow morning in White Building. The teams will be going head-to-head with fencers from Cornell, Duke, Fairleigh-Dickinson, Navy, North Carolina State, University of North Carolina, Northwestern, Stanford and Wisconsin.

"With a couple of the teams we're going to have to work hard for the win," Paxton said.

"Our ladies' team will face very serious competition with Fairleigh-Dickinson," Coach Emmanuil Kaidanov said. "Fairleigh-Dickinson is probably the most formidable opponent for us for the season."

FDU boasts 6'5" senior Uta Schaffer, who is ranked fifth in the world for 1990 in epee. However, Schaffer may be at a disadvantage since she will be competing in foil, Kaidanov said. Schaffer is supported by Melanie Jones, the team's second-strongest fencer.

Despite FDU's strong fencers, Kaidanov feels the Lady Lions will have an advantage. There is a big gap in strength between Jones and the third-strongest fencer on the team, Kaidanov said.

The Lady Lions may also get stiff competition from Wisconsin, University of North Carolina and Stanford due to the quality of fencers on each of the teams, Kaidanov added.

The men's team will also have some tough competition. Kaidanov expects the Penn State-Navy matchup in the second round of competition to be a tough one because of Navy's large number of good fencers.

The epee squad's youth and experience will also make it tough for the other teams, Kaidanov said.

"Overall, I have no doubts that the men will win all matches," Kaidanov said. However, the goal of this competition will not be to take the overall win, but to win by squads.

"Each of those teams have one or two squads that could give us trouble," Kaidanov said. "It's going to be a good competition."

"It'll give us a good taste of competition in our specific region," men's captain David Cox said. "The ones to beat are in the South-West division."

In preparation for tomorrow's event the teams have been working on their conditioning for the past two weeks due to the break in their schedule over the holidays. In addition, the teams have been increasing the intensity of their practices this past week.

Several of the fencers have also competed in events over the holidays. Olga Chernyak, Jennifer Prifrel, Richard Clark, Ben Millett, Thomas Strzalkowski and Jonathan Pollack competed in the World Cup Championship in Budapest, Hungary from Jan. 3-6.

These fencers plus Cox, Vitali Nazlimov, Ali Rezazadeh, Steve Flores and Katie Kowalski competed at the North American Circut Event on Dec. 2, 7 and 9.

The fencers also competed for the same event on Jan. 11-13.