Irish squads post 5-0 weekend, defeat Northwestern
By MIKE CONNOLLY
Sports Writer
The men's fencing team got back to basics Sunday at Evansville while the women's side knocked off its top Midwest rival, Northwestern, as both teams posted 5-0 weekends at the first Midwestern meet of the season.
The No. 2 men cruised to five easy wins as they dominated club teams from Purdue (24-3), Lawrence (23-4), University of Chicago (23-4), Northwestern (21-6) and Case Western Reserve (23-4). While the competition was far from the best they will face all year, the men had to make a difficult adjustment to fence the club teams, according to epeeist Brian Casas.
"You have to rely on more basic actions and simpler techniques," said the junior, who improved his season record to 17-8 with a 10-3 weekend. "It's tough. I am used to fencing good people in the gym and when you go to tournaments when you have to beat beginners and people who haven't fenced for very long, sometimes the adjustment can be hard."
Scott Gabler showed no trouble adjusting to the club fencers, however. The senior epeeist had one of his best weekends of his career as he finished 14-1. Gabler's strong fencing was especially important since sophomore epee captain Jan Viviani did not attend the meet. The first team All-American was in Cuba fencing in a World Cup event this weekend.
The men's foil team was also strong as its top three fencers each went undefeated. Captain and All-American Ozren Debic upped his career record to 60-4 and moved into the top 5 in all-time Irish winning percentage. Forrest Walton and Steve Mautone both bounced back from difficult opening weekends to posted 8-0 and 6-0 records, respectively.
The top four men's sabre fencers also finished the weekend undefeated as Matt Fabricant (15-0) remained the only undefeated fencer with more than 10 bouts.
While the men's teams fenced only easy club competition, the women's team scored an upset of Northwestern. Avenging last year's loss to the No. 4 Wildcats, the No. 7 Irish jumped out to a 13-6 lead before holding on to win 14-13 win. The 5-0 weekend was especially critical as the Irish were coming off a 1-3 opening weekend.
"It was a much easier meet than last week," freshman foilist Maggie Jordan said. "The one tough team we fenced were just really fired up and we just knew it was an important week. After last week we were a little down but we knew this meet could bring us back up."
Jordan was a big reason the Irish bounced back. While the freshman went 6-6 the first weekend, she went 12-0 in Evansville. Sophomore foilist Liza Boutsikaris' went 13-0 as well to pick up her 50th career win.
Jordan said she is just adjusting to the more difficult competition in college compared to high school.
"In high school I never really lost because the competition was much lower," Jordan said. "That was just the jitters of a first meet but I pulled through."
Two freshmen and a sophomore also pulled through with big weekends for the Irish against the Wildcats. Freshmen Destanie Milo and Jesse Filkins posted 8-1 and 6-1 records, respectively while sophomore Natalia Mazur went 6-2. All three fencers went 2-1 against Northwestern.
While the foil squad went 7-2 and the sabre squad went 6-3 against Northwestern, the epee squad struggled to a 1-8 record against the Wildcats. Sophomore All-American Meagan Call picked up the only epee win while All-American Anna Carnick went 0-3.
Call believes the epee squad can do better when the face the Wildcats again next weekend at home.
"I am glad we get to fence them again because I want another chance against Jen Greenebaum and I think I can beat her," said Call who lost to Greenebaum 5-3. "I beat her at NCAAs. I think I can beat her again and I know Anna can go 3-0 against Northwestern. I've seen her do it before and I think she will next weekend."
The women also defeated Lawrence(24-3), Case Western Reserve(24-3), Purdue (24-3) and the University of Chicago (21-6).
All Sports Stories for Tuesday, January 30, 2001
