The men's and women's fencing teams will spend the weekend at Montgomery College in Valley Forge to begin the defense of their NCAA title.

The teams will be competing in the Mid-Atlantic/South Regional competition. Results from this event will determine which teams and individuals from the region will compete for national status at the NCAA Championships to be held at Penn State, March 20-24. Teams that participate in the event come from states along the East Coast, south of New York.

"The goal is to qualify all teams and as many individuals as possible," assistant coach Wes Glon said.

In Saturday's competition fencers will try to qualify as teams. Four women's foil teams, two men's sabre, foil and epee teams will end up going to the championships. Which teams go is determined by a combination of the team's season results and the results from the day's competition.

On Sunday the fencers will compete as individuals in hopes of qualifying. Based on their scores for the day, seven or eight fencers from the region will be sent to the championships.

Both the men's and women's teams have met many of this weekend's opponents during the season. As a result they have a good feel for what the competition will be like.

"Our sabre and women's foil should dominate the opponents from this area," Glon said.

Both the men's sabre team and the women's foil team have undefeated seasons. Men's sabre is 16-0 and women's foil is 15-0.

"We have almost automatically won in women's foil and sabre," Coach Emmanuil Kaidanov said. "I do not see why they cannot be in the top two."

"No one is tough for our sabre team. . .at least in this region," Glon said. This should mean the team, consisting of Vitali Nazlimov, David Cox and Thomas Strzalkowski, is a shoo-in to qualify.

The women's team, Olga Chernyak, Suzie Paxton, Katie Kowalski and Janet Rossmann, may encounter some competition from Fairleigh-Dickinson.

"They have a strong team and we had a very good match with them during the season," Glon said.

The men's foil team -- Ed Mufel, Steve Flores and Anthony DuBose -- may have to work a little harder at qualifying than the sabre and women's foil teams.

"We still have to prove ourselves in foil," Kaidanov explained.

The men's foil team finished its season with a 14-2 record. In addition, the team will meet some of its tougher opponents from the season once again. These teams will be Penn, Duke, North Carolina and Navy. The team will also meet a formidable opponent in Princeton, a team it did not encounter during the season.

"In epee it will be quite a tough competition," Kaidanov said.

The epee team of Ben Millett, Richard Clark and Ali Rezazadeh finished the season 9-7. They are an entirely new, young team that seemed to be somewhat inconsistent during the season, Glon said.

"Now it seems like they established themselves," Glon added. "At this point they do have a good chance if they stay focused and keep a high level of concentration."

Tough competition for the epee team will come from Penn, UNC, Navy and Princeton.