Dec. 9, 2006

The Notre Dame fencing program will play host to four different collegiate events during the 2007 spring semester, as part of a schedule that will see the Irish face several of the nation’s top teams. Notre Dame’s Joyce Center Fieldhouse traditionally is the site of two fencing events _ the Notre Dame Duals (set for Jan. 20-21 in 2007) and the Midwest Fencing Conference Championships (March 3-4 this season) – with the 2007 NCAA Midwest Regional also set to be held in the Joyce Center (March 10) while a smaller four-team event (the Midwest Duals, Feb. 3) will be held in the Joyce Center’s Langford Fencing Gym on Feb. 3.

Notre Dame’s other events during the 2007 spring semester will include the annual NYU Duals (Jan. 28), the familiar trip to the Duke Duals (Feb. 9-10) and the nearby Northwestern Duals on Feb. 24. The four-day NCAA Championships are set for a return to Drew University (in Madison, N.J.) from March 22-25 (the men’s bouts will be on the first two days, followed by the women’s bouts during the weekend action).

Matchups for many of the regular-season events still are being finalized, with the Irish likely to face several of the nation’s other top contenders. The Notre Dame Duals currently includes a nine-time field, most notably Ohio State, Wayne State and the top three west-coast teams (Stanford, CS Fullerton and UC San Diego). The NYU Duals also are set to include top Midwest teams (OSU, WSU and Northwestern), plus northeast powers such as St. John’s Columbia and Yale. The Duke Duals will include its typical field (UNC, Air Force and Johns Hopkins) while many top teams are slated to converge on Northwestern for that late-season event, most notably: OSU, Penn State, UNC, WSU, JHU and Temple.

Various Notre Dame fencers also will be competing at USFA events in 2006-07, including the recent North American Cup event in Albuquerque, this weekend’s N.A.C. event in Richmond, another N.A.C. in Columbus (Jan. 12-15) and the annual Junior Olympics (Feb. 16-19, in Denver).

An update on recent results involving Notre Dame fencers will be posted next week on und.com – with those events (all non-NCAA) including: the Albuquerque and Richmond N.A.C. tournaments, the Culver Cup and the Pan-American Games that were held in Venezuela (junior sabre fencer Mariel Zagunis and freshman epeeist Kelley Hurley both were part of the Team USA contingent at that event).

Notre Dame’s full 2006-07 schedule is linked below (and via the schedule link on the fencing page at und.com):

http://und.cstv.com/sports/c-fenc/sched/nd-c-fenc-sched.html