Tournament time! The chance to separate the men from the boys, and that's exactly what Tom Strzalkowski has in mind.

Gunning for his third consecutive NCAA individual title, Strzalkowski and the rest of the fencing team left yesterday for the 10 a.m. start of today's NCAA Championships at little Brandeis University in Massachusetts. The National Championships should last until Tuesday.

"It would be the greatest, I can't even imagine," said Strzalkowski of the thought of winning an NCAA team championship.

Strzalkowski was on Penn State's 1991 NCAA championship team -- the last overall team title Happy Valley has seen in three years.

"That was the best experience in my life," said Strzalkowski, almost speechless. "Words can't really explain it."

Maybe not words, but a word -- Kaidanov. Ever since Emmanuil Kaidanov accepted Penn State's coaching job 12 years ago, the fencing team has been dominant. Since Kaidanov's arrival, the men's team has won 93 percent of its dual meets, while the women's team owns an 89 percent winning percentage.

But the greatest overall team accomplishment might be the back-to-back championships the fencing team won in 1990 and 1991. And despite the team's finishing second to Columbia the last two years, as a result of overconfidence and lack of concentration, men's epe fencer Kimo Quaintance believes this year might be different.

"Mentally, we've had problems," said Quaintance of his epe squad. "Actually, I saw these problems going away. Everybody's excited about (NCAAs)."

Mentally is the key word. Both the men's and women's team must be in its bouts mentally if they are serious about combining for the overall team title and regaining the national title.

"If your attitude is not good enough to win, you won't win," said Olga Chernyak, who will be fighting teammate Olga Kalinovskaya for the women's individual title.

Besides Strzalkowski, several fencers on the men's team will be fighting for individual titles, including Quaintance, Ben Millett and Andy Gearhart.