April 1, 2018
By Joanne Norell
NOTRE DAME, Ind. — University of Notre Dame fencing assistant coach Aleks Ochocki has been named co-captain of the United States National Cadet and Junior World Championship teams, with competition set to begin today in Verona, Italy.
The Irish will also have three current student-athletes competing at the championships — sophomore women’s foilist Finnula Mageras will compete for Ireland while freshman men’s epeeist Stephen Ewart and freshman men’s foilist and reigning NCAA Champion Nick Itkin compete for the United States. Mageras went 13-3 as sophomore, running her career record to 34-17. Ewart posted a 25-26 dual record for the Irish this season, while Itkin went 37-11 during the season before turning in an 18-4 record during pool play at the NCAA Championships en route to a No. 1 seed in direct elimination and a gold medal.
Ochocki joined the Irish in March 2017 after five seasons as an assistant at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, and seven seasons as a coach at Linden, New Jersey’s Polish American Fencing School. He has since helped develop six sabre All-Americans and been a key component in Notre Dame’s national title runs in 2017 and 2018.
Before beginning his coaching career full time, Ochocki served as a member of the U.S Senior National Team. He is a five-time time U.S National Champion, Pan American Champion, 15-time North American Cup champion, four-time Junior Olympic Champion and won the bronze medal with Team USA at the 2010 Junior World Championships in Baku, Azerbaijan. A 2016 Olympic hopeful, Ochocki’s pursuit was cut short due to four unexpected knee surgeries but finished his career ranked 24th in the world.
A 2012 graduate of Penn State, the four-time first-team All-American bookended his fencing career with NCAA Individual Sabre Championship titles in his freshman and senior seasons. Ochocki reached the semifinals of the competition in each of his four years and served as Penn State’s captain during his junior and senior years. He also represented the United States at the World University Games in Shenzhen, China in 2011.
The junior and cadet world championships will take place April 1-9, 2018, in Verona, Italy.
— ND —
Joanne Norell, athletics communications assistant director at the University of Notre Dame, has been part of the Fighting Irish athletics communications team since 2014 and coordinates communications efforts for the Notre Dame men’s tennis and fencing programs, in addition to assisting with football communications and overseeing production of the football Gameday Magazine. Norell is a 2011 graduate of Purdue University and earned her master’s degree from Georgetown University in 2013.