The facts of fencing

Fencers take the good, take the bad, take rare loss to Columbia

It was a day the Penn State fencing team will always remember for the good times. And a day it would like to forget because of the bad times.

When the Lady Lions defeated Columbia 21-11 on Saturday, not only was it their third win in three matches on the afternoon, but it gave coach Emmanuil Kaidanov his 400th career dual meet victory at Penn State.

Kaidanov compared the men's loss to a, "sobering, cold shower."

"Frankly, I expected the match would be very tough," Kaidanov said. "But I didn't expect such a close score."

Men's team captain Tom Peng said the loss wasn't a complete surprise. But he did admit a strong showing by Penn, who the Lions defeated 14-13, wasn't completely expected.

"Last year, we pretty much dominated (Penn)," Peng said. "But with Columbia, we knew it would be close. And we knew we could lose."

The women's team, however, didn't have such problems. Along with their victory against Columbia, the Lions dominated Temple 25-7 and Penn 28-4. Several members of the team had strong competitions. In epee, freshman Charlotte Walker and sophomore Ola Korfanty finished the day a combined 10-0, while juniors Wendy Hall and Kimberly Allen ended at 10-1 and 10-2, respectively. The foil team was equally good, with sophomore Carla Esteva recording a 9-3 mark and senior captain Claire Jackson finishing 8-2.

The meet with Columbia was Jackson's last team competition at Penn State. The senior foil fencer, who wasn't even enrolled at Penn State the last time the men's team lost a meet, said fencing her last bout with her team was a bizarre feeling.

"I kept thinking that I still had regionals and the NCAAs," Jackson said. "But I thought about it, and it was pretty sad. It was strange -- the last bout, thinking it was the end of my season."

Jackson said she used the finality of the situation to motivate herself and to impress her teammates a final time.

"I wanted to do well for myself." Jackson said. "It was my last chance to show my squad what I can do."

Still, Jackson's successful finale was somewhat dimmed by the men's loss. She said with everybody out to beat the defending national champion Lions, a loss may have been unavoidable.

"I don't think they did quite as bad as they think they did," Jackson said. "I think they feel like they let down the tradition (of winning). Other teams are going to have their strong days, too. It's a shame, but it happens."

But the fencers must ask themselves if it happened at the wrong time. With the regional tournament to decide who goes to the NCAA Championships fast approaching, this may not be the time to have shaky confidence.

However, Kaidanov doesn't feel confidence will be a factor at regionals in two weeks.

"It's not confidence," Kaidanov promised. "It's just the alarm that, 'Guys, we can't live with past trials.' It's a new year, and we have to try something new."

If they have hopes for another national championship, the fencers know what they have to do -- work hard.

"We could see that we still need more work," Jackson said. "We could do it, but we have to work hard over the next two weeks. We have two weeks to push ourselves."