Oct. 22, 2002
Ten members of the Notre Dame fencing program opened 2002-03 college competition at Northwestern’s annual Remenyik Open. The weekend action (Oct. 19-20) saw three Notre Dame fencers claim gold medals, in addition to a runner-up and seventh-place finish.
Notre Dame’s first-place finishers included sophomore women’s foilist Alicja Kryczalo, senior men’s foil captain Ozren Debic and senior men’s sabre Matt Fabricant. Kryczalo and her classmate Andrea Ament matched their 1-2 finish from last spring’s NCAA Championship, with both defeating world-class foilist and Hungarian national Julia Foldi of Northwestern.
Junior women’s sabre Maggie Jordan finished seventh, narrowly missing her chance at a medal in her final bout. Her classmate, two-time NCAA participant Destanie Milo, placed 12th in the women’s sabre competition.
Notre Dame fencers will compete in one other fall individual tournament, the annual Penn State Max Garret Open (Nov. 16-17). The 2003 spring season includes deal-meet events at Ohio State (Jan. 25), Notre Dame (Feb. 1-2), Duke (Feb. 7-8) and Michigan State (Feb. 22). Postseason competition will include the Midwest Fencing Conference Championship (March 1-2, at ND), the Midwest Regional qualifier (March 8, at OSU) and the four-day NCAA Championships (March 20-23, at Air Force).
Noteworthy dual-meet opponent on ND’s 2003 spring schedule include Ohio State (at OSU, at MSU), Northwestern (at OSU, at ND), Penn State (at ND) and Stanford (at Duke).
Several Notre Dame fencers currently are listed in the U.S. Fencing national “open/senior” rankings: junior women’s epee and defending NCAA champion Kerry Walton (5th), Ament (6th), senior men’s epee captain Jan Viviani (12th), senior women’s epee captain Anna Carnick (16th), sophomore men’s foilist Derek Snyder (16th), Milo (26th) and senior men’s sabre Matt Fabricant (38th). Snyder also is listed 4th in the U.S. junior men’s foil rankings.