Feb. 9, 2003

Men's and women's fencing teams flew to duke university this weekend to take on the USAFA, UNC, Notre Dame, Johns Hopkin and duke university. It was the last mega meet of the season before the NCAA Western Regional Championships on March 1 in San Diego.

Both foil squads overwhelmed their opponents on the east coast. Iris Zimmerman and Eva Petschnigg went 14-1 handily defeating the 2002 NCAA Champion from Notre Dame. Neophyte, Kimi Field, picked up two crucial wins over UNC and Johns Hopkins to give the women an undefeated weekend. On the men's side, Mark Mulholland, Florian Reichling, and Steve Gerberman showed their prowess beating USAFA, UNC, Johns Hopkins, and Duke. Notre Dame delivered them thier only loss for the day.

Senior saber fencer, Robert owens, led the saber team to identical wins. Notre Dame barely squeaked out a victory over the saber squad, 6-3. Calvin Chin and Jonathan Pearlstein picked up the needed victories. Women's saber was led by Meghan Everett (11-4), Freshman Aileen Maloney (8-7) and Jennifer Williams. Williams, fencing less than six months, kept women's saber alive with a 3-2 record over their opponents. Martin Lee, freshman, led the men's epee team with a 10-5 record. It wasn't enough to beat the USAFA and Notre Dame but teamed with Ken Jung and Brian Grefenstette, the squad went on to beat Johns Hopkin.

Women's epee struggled and could not hold their own against the more experienced fencers. Focusing immediately after coming off a loss is what experience teaches and unfortunately epee spiraled. Each of the female epeeists have acquired fencing as a new sport while at Stanford and will be preparing to take on the schools at Western Regionals.

"Fencing is intense and it is difficult to face off against 2.5 "double headers" in one day," explained George Pogosov, co-head coach. Matches begin at 8AM and are not completed until 5PM each day.

" Epee in particular is a demanding weapon of concentration and to lose your focus for only a second can cost dearly", explains co-coach, Lisa Milgram.

Both teams will meet USAFA , Cal Tech, UCSan Diego, and CSFullerton at NCAA Western Regional Championships to qualify to the NCAA Championships. Schools can qualify a maximum of two in each weapon to the NCAAs but in most weapons there are only 2 available qualifying spots from the entire region.