Nov. 23, 2003
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. – Five Notre Dame women’s fencers posted top finishes in Sunday’s annual Penn State Max Garret Open – led by another championship for junior foilist Alicia Kryczalo, who beat her classmate Andrea Ament in the 15-11 title bout (in a repeat from the 2001 final at the PSU Open). Senior epeeist and 2002 NCAA champion Kerry Walton edged Penn State’s Katarzyna Trzopek (the ’03 NCAA champ) in the semifinals before dropping a 15-14 title bout to Wayne State’s Anna Garina.
Freshman Valerie Providenza led a strong showing by the Notre Dame sabre squad, besting her classmate Angela Vincent in the third-place bout (15-10). Three Notre Dame seniors – Natalia Mazur (6th), Destanie Milo (10th) and Danielle Davis (11th) also finished among the top-12 in the 38-fencer sabre field.
Kryczalo’s dominant college career now includes three titles at the Penn State Open, plus two NCAA titles, two Midwest Regional crowns and a pair of first-place finishes at the Midwest Fencing Conference Championships.
Senior Maggie Jordan – who has returned to foil after fencing at sabre the past two seasons – finished 18th while sophomore Colleen Walsh was 23rd among the 45-fencer foil field.
Several other members of the Irish squad competed on Sunday at the Turkey Shoot, an open tournament held at the Joyce Center fencing gym. Senior Beth Emilian won the women’s foil competition (in addition to winning 5-of-6 exhibition bouts vs. men’s fencers from other schools), with junior Rebecca Chimahusky placing third in women’s epee and junior Tiffany Muller adding a third-place sabre finish.
The foil and epee fields each featured nine fencers (six of them All-Americans) who competed in the 2003 NCAA Championships while the sabre field included five competitors from the 2003 NCAAs (two All-Americans).
Kryczalo dispatched of PSU’s Sophia Hiss in the semifinals (15-1) while Ament posted wins over a pair of All-Americans – PSU’s Anna Donath and Princeton’s Jacqueline Leahy – in the quarterfinal and semifinal rounds.
Mazur had a noteworthy 5-4 win over Princeton’s Catherine Pack (a 2003 NCAA participant), later losing to Providenza in the quarterfinals. Vincent’s wins included a 15-8 decision over Penn’s Casey Frey while Milo lost just twice all day, including a split versus Princeton’s Mira Morova and win over Frey in the pool round.
Walsh posted a noteworthy comeback in the preliminary pool rounds, erasing a 4-0 deficit to beat Temple’s Jeanne Browne (a 2003 NCAA participant).
Walton improved on her third-place finish at the 2002 PSU Open while Ament returned to the title bout after placing eighth in ’02. Milo’s previous finishes at the PSU Open included fifth in 2000, 18th in ’01 and fourth in ’02 – with Davis registering her best career finish at the event.
The opposing fencers in the foil field included four All-Americans (Leahy, Donath and her PSU teammates Meredith Chin and Marta Grochal), plus three others who competed in the 2003 NCAAs (Yale’s Justine Aw and the Temple duo of Browne and Jenna Remmert).
Walton’s opponents in the 44-fencer epee field included four other All-Americans (Trzopek, Midwest rival Anna Vinnikov of Wayne State and the Princeton duo of Kira Hohonsee and Eleanor Leighton), plus three other ’03 NCAA veterans (Yale’s Erica Korb, Temple’s Sara Forsythe and Rebecca Kehoe of Rutgers).
Top opposing fencers in the sabre field included Pack, Temple All-American Aziza Hassan and RU’s Joanna Szklarska (a ’03 NCAA participant).
See the below link for complete results from Sunday’s Penn State Open:
http://www.gopsusports.com/pressreleases/pressrelease.cfm?anncid=5230