This weekend's tournament for the Penn State fencing team might not have the elite field that last week's Penn State Invitational did, but Penn State coach Emmanuil Kaidanov is not going to say it will be an automatic victory for the Nittany Lions.

"Anyone who has a weapon in a competition has the chance to beat you. Other factors, like the ref making a bad call, can hurt you, too," Kaidanov said.

The team travels to Boston for the competition at Brandeis on Sunday. The field includes MIT, Drew, Boston College, Tufts, Johns Hopkins and Brandeis.

This is the third team event for the Lions this season.

Even though this weekend may seem like a good opportunity for some of the less-experienced fencers to compete, Kaidanov is more concerned about getting players qualified for the NCAA Championships in March.

Each team is allowed to send four fencers for each weapon in a tournament like this, and every time a player competes, he earns valuable qualifying points for the NCAA Championships. If a less-experienced fencer were to be in the competition it might prevent the team from having a full squad at Nationals, as more qualified fencers would lose points.

"It is like comparing a regular bowl and the National Championship bowl in college football," Kaidanov said. "We are already in a regular bowl, but we need to get to the title game, which is our ultimate goal."

Kaidanov feels that no team should upset the Lions on Sunday. He added that some opposing individual fencers might give the Lions a hard time though. He noted that some of the fencers that will compete on Sunday for other teams should be at Nationals in March.

There is also a qualifying round for the World Cup this weekend, but the only fencer missing from the team will be freshman Caitlin Thompson, who competes in the saber division. Other fencers are able and willing to take her place, though.

The women's side is still smarting from its loss to St. John's during the last team competition, and Kaidanov added he was even "angry" about it as it should not have happened. The women's and men's teams hope to prevent that from occurring this weekend and hope to fare well in their final team competition of the 2005-06 season.