COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – The three-time defending NCAA National Champions opened their season in fine fashion at the Western Invitational hosted by the Air Force Academy over the weekend. Both the USCFCA top-ranked men’s and second-ranked women’s squads went undefeated, both posting records of 7-0.
Both squads defeated defeated Stanford, UC San Diego, Brandeis, Harvard, Air Force, Incarnate Word and UNC to start the season perfect.
The men’s epee squad led the way for Notre Dame, posting a 50-13 record. On the women’s side the foil team highlighted the performance with a mark of 48-15.
The men’s foil duo of Ziyuan Chen and Mason Stanley had great days, as Chen went 13-1 and Stanley finished 12-1 in bouts. The Irish were also paced by Jonathan Hamilton-Meikle (14-2) and Maruan Osman-Touson (13-3) in men’s epee and Henry Nadile (14-4) and Luke Linder in men’s sabre.
On the women’s side Rebecca Candescu and Josephine Conway dominated in women’s foil, both posting records of 13-2. Michaela Joyce led the women’s epee team with a record of 14-4 while Atara Greenbaum was the women’s sabre top performer with a mark of 10-4.
The men wasted no time making a statement, as they downed Stanford by a score of 25-2 to open the year. The Irish went undefeated in foil (9-0) while both epee and sabre posted 8-1 scores. On the women’s side the team opened up the season with a ranked win, defeating No. 14 Stanford 18-9. Joyce went 3-0 in her bouts en route to the epee team posting an 8-1 score. Josephina Conway was also perfect in her foil bouts, going 3-0.
The men followed with their first ranked win of the season, grabbing a 17-10 victory over No. 10 UC San Diego. Three different Notre Dame fencers went 3-0 against the Tritons, as Linder in sabre, Chen in foil and Valentin Matveev were unblemished.
The women defeated UC San Diego 20-7 and then both sides then picked up wins over Brandeis, as the men won 18-9 and the women also recorded an 18-9 victory.
The highest anticipated bouts of the day on both the men’s and women’s side came against Harvard, as the men’s entered the season at No. 5 and the women at No. 4. The men came away with a decisive 20-7 win with foil leading the way. Both Stanley and Dominic Joseph posted marks of 3-0 and Osman-Touson went 3-0 in epee to help secure the win.
On the women’s side Notre Dame picked up a 16-11 victory. Jadeyn Williams and Atara Greenbaum dominated in sabre with each going 3-0. Joyce and Candescu went 3-0 in epee and foil, respectively.
The Irish men then posted a 23-4 win over Air Force and a 21-6 victory over Incarnate Word. The women also posted wins over No. 15 Air Force (19-8) and Incarnate Word (20-7) to improve to 6-0 heading into the final matchup of the invite.
Notre Dame’s final opponent was ACC foe North Carolina. The Irish posted a 20-7 win on the men’s side with the epee squad leading the way with a mark of 8-1. Both the foil and sabre squads went 6-3 to cement the perfect 7-0 start to the year.
The women’s showdown with the Tar Heels was tighter, as the team came through with a 16-11 victory. The epee squad went 6-3 and the foil and sabre both pulled out close 5-4 decisions to put an exclamation mark on the weekend.
The Fighting Irish men’s and women’s team are back in action on Sunday, Nov. 19 in Columbus, Ohio, at the Elite Invitational.