Fencers dominate Fighting Irish

Penn State and Notre Dame waged war on the football field for many years. It became an intense rivalry between the two schools that eventually came to an end after the 1992 season.

The rivalry has resumed on the fencing strip.

For the past three years, the NCAA fencing national title has ended up in either South Bend, Ind., or State College. The two programs have laid claim to being the superpowers of the collegiate fencing world.

The adversaries met again on Saturday in White Building. The Nittany and Lady Lions continued their recent domination of the Fighting Irish, winning 16-11 and 18-14, respectively.

There were three clutch performances in the men's competition that helped the Lions edge the Irish. Foilsman David Lidow won all three of his bouts during the Notre Dame match, including a 5-4 victory over All-American Jeremy Siek.

In sabre, Scott Howard came back from an 0-4 deficit to defeat two-time All-American Bill Lester by a score of 5-4. Tom Peng was the go-to-guy in epee for the Lions when he also came from behind to win his bout.

"If those matches were reversed, who knows the outcome?" Lion coach Emmanuil Kaidanov said. "It could have turned the match around."

On the women's side, both the foil and epee teams turned out impressive performances that led to a Lady Lion victory.

In foil, the women had to deal with the dynamic duo of All-Americans Sara Walsh and Myriah Brown. The Lady Lion combination of Sibyl Goldstein, Claire Jackson, Keysa Ortiz and Carla Esteva proved to be too much for the Irish, and Penn State prevailed, 9-7.

"Overall, we were a little bit shaky," Walsh said. "We should have been more revved up. They're all very solid. There's no weaknesses in their team."

The score was also 9-7 in the epee competition with the team of Wendy Hall, Gena Henderson, Polo Wagner and Alexandra Korfanty winning many close bouts over the Notre Dame women.

Although Notre Dame posed the biggest matchup of the day for Penn State, it wasn't the only one. The Nittany and Lady Lions also took on Duke, Cleveland State, Haverford, Air Force, St. John's and Northwestern, but the men's victory over Northwestern does not count toward the Nittany Lions' record because the Wildcats are a club team.

Both the men's and women's teams handled these opponents with relative ease. The men outscored these opponents by a combined score of 122-40 and the women by the grand canyon-sized margin of 162-30.

The team that fared the best out of these also-rans was St. John's. Last year's third-place NCAA finisher lost 23-9 to the Lady Lions and 18-9 to the Nittany Lions. One of the biggest individual upsets occurred during the men's epee event, when Penn State's Peng beat last year's national championship runner-up George Hentea of St. John's, 5-1.

In women's epee, a near upset also took place for the Lady Lions. Henderson was winning, 4-2, over defending national champion Nicole Dygert of St. John's. Then Dygert showed why she is the champion and came back to hand Henderson a 5-4 loss.

"She's a very experienced fencer," Henderson said of Dygert. "She's really good and I hoped to win, but 5-4 is better than 5-0."

The Nittany and Lady Lions not only went undefeated in matches for the day, but they also outscored all their opponents in every weapon.

With their performance on Saturday, it looks like Penn State is ready to defend its NCAA title and add another chapter the legacy of Penn State fencing. This one to be called: Three-peat.

"I would say this team has more confidence," said Kaidanov when asked to compare last year's team with this year's. "At the same time, I don't think we are completely prepared yet. We have lots of holes to fill and a lot of work ahead of us."