Oct. 26, 2001
Several members of the Notre Dame fencing program-past and present-will be in action during the coming days-with the most notable being Irish foil captain and two-time All-American Ozren Debic, who is competing with his native Croatian national team at the World Championships in Nimes, France (Oct. 26-Nov. 1).
Former Notre Dame four-time All-Americans Nicole Mustilli (South Orange, N.J.) and Magda Krol (Vancouver, British Columbia) also are competing in the World Championships.
Mustilli-who helped the U.S. women’s sabre team win the gold medal at the 2000 World Championships-is ranked fourth in the U.S. and 24th in the world rankings for senior women’s sabres (she fenced epee at ND from 1996-99, with women’s sabre making its NCAA debut in 2000).
Krol-who earned three All-America honors at ND in epee before switching to foil as a senior in 2000-will be competing at the World Champinships as a member of Canada’s epee team (she holds a No. 52 world senior ranking).
Notre Dame freshman Andrea Ament (Cleveland, Ohio)-currently the top-ranked U.S. junior women’s foilist-nearly earned a spot on the U.S. World Championship squad and is expected to make a big impact with the Irish during the 2001-02 season.
Notre Dame freshman Andrea Ament (Cleveland, Ohio)-currently the top-ranked U.S. junior women’s foilist-nearly earned a spot on the U.S. World Championship squad and is expected to make a big impact with the Irish during the 2001-02 season.
Nine fencers will be representing Notre Dame this weekend at the Remenyik Open, an individual tournament to be held at Northwestern on Oct. 28-29. The more noteworthy Irish competitors include a pair of local products who are two-time All-Americans-fifth-year men’s sabre Andrzej Bednarski (Granger, Ind.) and senior epeeist Brian Casas (Mishawaka, Ind.)-while senior sabre captain Andre Crompton (Irvington, N.J.) will see his first action as a Notre Dame fencer since claiming All-America honors at the 2001 NCAAs.
Other Irish men’s fencers who will compete at Northwestern include senior foilist Jeremy Beau (Dunedin, Fla.), promising freshman epeeist Michael Sobieraj (Krakow, Poland) and sophomore newcomer Brian Dosal (Miami, Fla.) in sabre. Sobieraj , a member of Poland’s junior national team, has been ranked among the world’s top-25 junior epeeists and won the 2000 World Cup event in Hungary.
Fifth-year sabre captain Carianne McCullough (Philadelphia, Pa.) is joined by highly-touted freshman foilist Alijca Kryczalo (Gdansk, Poland) and sophomore sabre Destanie Milo (Knox, Ind.) as Notre Dame’s three women’s competitors scheduled to fence at the Remenyik Open. Kryczalo-who also won her event at the 2000 World Cup event in Hungary-has been listed as high as No. 4 in the world junior rankings and is a member of Poland’s national team.
Notre Dame also will return to the Penn State Open, a two-day individual tournament to be held Nov. 10-11.
Notre Dame’s challenging 2002 regular season of team competition includes five events that will match the Irish versus some of the nation’s premier fencing programs. The schedule includes dual matchups with 19 of the 29 schools that sent competitors to the 2001 NCAA Championships-most notably defending champion St. John’s, 2001 runner-up Penn State and five other teams that finished in the top 10 at the NCAAs (Stanford, Columbia, Ohio State, Yale and Wayne State).
The 2002 season opens back in Evanston, Ill., as the Irish will compete in the Northwestern Women’s Open on Jan. 13. Top contenders at that eight-team women’s event include the host Wildcats (ranked No. 6 in the final 2001 women’s poll), Temple (No. 9 in 2001) and North Carolina (No. 12), plus Fairleigh Dickinson, James Madison and John’s Hopkins-each of which sent fencers to the 2001 NCAA women’s sabre competition-plus Rollins College.
The highly-competitive New York University Duals (Jan. 27) will feature a five-team field comprised of squads that each placed among the top 15 at the 2001 NCAAs: St. John’s, Notre Dame, Columbia, Yale and NYU.
The Air Force Duals (Feb. 2) will feature a matchup between Notre Dame and Stanford, with the field also including 2001 NCAA participants Northwestern, Duke, Cal State Fullerton and the host Falcons.
Another marquee matchup will await the Irish at the Ohio State Duals (Feb. 9), as Penn State will battle ND in an event that also includes 2001 NCAA teams Cleveland State and host OSU.
Notre Dame wraps up the 2002 regular season at the Wayne State Duals (Feb. 23), with the field including the host team (the 11th-place finisher at the 2001 NCAAs) and two other NCAA teams from the Midwest region-Detroit and Lawrence-plus Michigan and Michigan State.
The Midwest Fencing Conference Championships will return to Notre Dame’s Joyce Center Fieldhouse on March 2-3 while the Midwest Regional Qualifier will be March 9 at Case Western Reserve in Cleveland, Ohio. The four-day NCAA Championships are slated for March 21-24 at Drew University in Madison, N.J.
The Notre Dame men return five of their maximum six All-Americans from the 2001 squad that held the No. 1 ranking for most of the season (junior foilist Forest Walton is studying abroad as a five-year architecture student). In addition to Debic (the 2000 NCAA runner-up), Bednarski, Crompton and Casas, the Irish men also return junior epee captain Jan Viviani (Haworth, N.J.), a two-time All-American who placed third at the 2000 and 2001 NCAAs.
The Irish women-ranked No. 5 in the final 2001 national poll-return a pair of two-time All-Americans in junior epeeists Meagan Call (Eugene, Ore.) and Anna Carnick (Mishawaka, Ind.), who will captain the women’s epee squad in 2002. Junior Liza Boutsikaris (Sparta, N.J.) also returns to lead the women’s foil squad and will be looking to match her All-America showing from the 2000 NCAAs. McCullough qualified for the NCAAs in 2000 and again in 2001, when she was joined by her teammate Milo at the national competition.
Irish sophomore Maggie Jordan (Maplewood, N.J.) is slated to make a return to sabre, after qualifying for the 2001 NCAAs as a foilist, while her classmate Kerry Walton (Londonberry, N.H.) could make a big impact after not competing with the Irish in 2001 (she currently is ranked No. 4 among U.S. junior women’s epeeists).
In addition to Ament, Kryczalo and Sobieraj, freshman foilist Derek Snyder (Chatsworth, Calif.) also is expected to be a major newcomer for the Irish in 2002. Snyder won the U.S. under-19 foil title and currently is No. 4 in the U.S. junior foil rankings (also ranking 15th in epee).
See www.und.com for the complete Notre Dame fencing schedule.