Champions ... again
Fencers storm way to fifth straight title

By DARREN STEELE
Collegian Staff Writer

Only a few athletes involved in college sports can tell you what it is that drives them to be champions, and the members of the Penn State fencing team are among those few.

Penn State won the NCAA Fencing National Championship yesterday for an unprecedented fifth straight year -- its seventh crown in the '90s. The Nittany Lions (171 points) finished ahead of Notre Dame (139) in the four-day event held at Brandeis in Waltham, Mass.

"They (the other teams) are sick and tired of Penn State winning," Penn State coach Emmanuil Kaidanov said.

This is the first time in the 55-year history of the sport that any team has won five consecutive NCAA national titles. The only two years this decade that Penn State has not won the title were 1992 and '93, when it finished second.

And for this latest Penn State championship squad, which won by 32 points, it had to climb a mountain of talent to complete the decade of dominance.

Penn State trailed Columbia/Barnard University by two points, 40-38, after the first day of competition. The men's individual foil squad put up impressive numbers on the day, as two-time All-American David Lidow went 12-2 and fellow teammate Gang Lu went 11-3. The men's individual sabre squad saw sophomore Aaron Stuewe go 8-6 and fellow teammate Mike Takagi post an even mark of 7-7.

The second day of fencing went even better for the Lions. Lidow finished fourth in the men's individual foil competition by winning 21 of 23 bouts in round-robin action. The senior's career came to an end when he lost to Yale's Peter Devin, 15-14 in the semifinals. Lu placed sixth in the foil competition.

The men's individual sabre squad helped the Lions take the lead as Stuewe and Takagi slashed their way to impressive finishes of No. seven and 12, respectively. The men's team kept spreading the "disease," as senior co-captain Tom Peng, the hero of last year's championships, posted an 11-3 record while freshman Daniel Landgren went 10-4. At the end of day two, the Lions led, 87-84.

The third day of competition was overwhelming for the Lions' opponents. The women's squads were added to the mix, and the Lady Lions did nothing less than set the tournament on fire. In the women's individual foil competition, Stephanie Klemp, a late addition to the team, roared to a sixth-place spot with nine wins. Junior co-captain Carla Esteva shined as well, collecting eight wins.

The women's individual epee squad was just as impressive as the men's was the previous day. Stephanie Eim continued her season of dominance as she fenced her way to 10 wins. Charlotte Walker, the defending NCAA women's individual epee champion, worked her way to third as she sent 11 of her competitors packing.

The men's individual epee squad wrapped up its competition as the Lions' dynamic duo, Peng and Landgren, surged toward the top. Peng placed second, as he came up short against St. John's Alex Royblat 15-11 in the championship match. Landgren finished fourth as he lost to St. John's freshman Doron Levit. This gave the Lions a 21-point advantage, 139-118, going into the fourth and final day of competition.

The Lions encountered an uncompromising position yesterday as teammates Eim and Walker had to battle each other in the semifinals of the women's individual epee competition. In a duel between friends and teammates, Eim, a freshman from Germany, came out on top, and Walker ended up placing third.

Eim, however, lost to Felicia Zimmerman from Stanford, who was defeated by Walker in last year's championship match. It was an impressive ending to Eim's first year of collegiate competition.

Klemp finished sixth in the women's individual foil competition, and team captain Esteva took seventh. Surprisingly, Penn State took the team championship despite no individual championships.

Being a national champion is something truly special. For Peng, Walker, Esteva, Lu and others, it is another year they can keep with them forever to go along with the memories of previous national titles. For newcomers such as Eim, Landgren and Klemp, it was an introduction into a legacy of pride and fulfillment.

"Its very exciting for me," said senior Wendy Hall, an All-American in 1996 and '97. "This was the fourth one for me. It has been really incredible. This really makes you proud, even-though I wasn't there with them. I was there my first two years, and it's just really great being a part of something like this."

The championship helped to complete a decade of dominance in the '90s, one that can only rivaled by the UCLA Bruins men's basketball squad of the '60s and '70s.