January 24, 1999
NEW YORK, N.Y. – The Notre Dame men’s and women’s fencing teams were in New York, N.Y., to take on Columbia, St. John’s and NYU. The second-ranked men’s squad went undefeated improving to 6-1 on the season, while the fourth-ranked women’s team had two wins and a loss to Columbia giving them a 5-2 record in 1999.
The men defeated fifth-ranked St. John’s and fourth-ranked Columbia both by a score of 16-11 and ninth-ranked NYU by a 15-12 score. For the second consecutive meet, the Irish were paced by strong production from their sabre squad. Leading the sabre squad was freshman Gabor Szelle who was 9-0 on the day as he improved his record to 19-1 for the season. Other bright spots for the men’s team came from freshman epeeist Brian Casas who was 6-2 on the day and sabremen Luke LaValle and Andre Crompton who each posted 5-2 marks.
The women’s team defeated NYU 19-13, ninth-ranked St. John’s 21-11 and fell to third-ranked Columbia 20-12. The loss to Columbia marks the first time since 1993 that the Irish women have had two losses in the same season. During the past five seasons (1994-98) the Irish women have lost only three times in regular season competition. The Irish were led by their four returning All-Americans Magda Krol, Nicole Mustilli, Myriah Brown and Sara Walsh. Epeeists Krol and Mustilli were 9-3 and 10-2 respectively, while foilists Brown and Walsh finished 9-3 and 5-0 respectively.
The Irish will be home next weekend as they host Case Western Reserve, University of Illinois, Chicago Cleveland State, Detroit Mercy, Lawrence, Michigan, Michigan State, Northwestern, Ohio State, Purdue, Tri-State and Wayne State in a two day competition.