Irish cruise to 36-match win streak at Notre Dame Open
By MIKE CONNOLLY
Sports Writer
The men's fencing team stretched its undefeated streak to 36 matches with 11 wins at this weekend's Notre Dame Open.
"I think we kicked everyone's butt," junior All-American Gabor Szelle said. "I think we did what we were supposed to do."
The Irish rolled to 21-6 wins against Lawrence, Detroit, Chicago and Purdue, 20-7 wins against Michigan, Michigan State and Air Force, a 22-5 win against Cleveland State and a 16-11 win against Northwestern.
"Sabre squad is probably the best in the country. The foil squad is also very solid. Epee, I think they can get better," head coach Yves Auriol said about his team's progress.
The wins came mostly against club teams but some individual fencers presented problems for the Irish. Wayne State junior Jakub Krochmalski, who finished second at last year's NCCAs to Szelle, beat Andre Crompton and Matt Fabricant but Szelle picked up a 5-2 win.
"I was very happy with that because the last time we fenced a five-touch bout, I lost to him so I wanted to win this week," the 2000 sabre champion said.
Mental errors also cost the Irish at times. All-American Jan Viviani dropped a bout against Lawrence.
"I don't think I was concentrating as much as I should have," Viviani said about his loss to Adam Lake. "Last match of the day, last bout of the day, I think I just blew it."
Despite the occasional miscues, Viviani, who went 20-1, deemed the weekend a success.
"A lot of the walk-ons got to fence, a lot of the reserves got to fence, it was a good weekend overall," he said.
The walk-ons fenced the majority of the bouts against most of the schools. Once the starters won the five bouts needed to win the match, the reserves subbed in and finished the match. Against Northwestern, however, the reserves started the bouts and that move almost came back to haunt the Irish as the Wildcats jumped out to a 4-3 lead before the starters returned and won the last two bouts.
"We made some mistakes there," Szelle said.
Most of the meet, however, was a chance for the Irish to pad their stats. Junior foilist Steve Mautone became the 51st man to reach 100 wins in his career. Mautone went 13-1 on the weekend.
Foil captain Ozren Debic posted an undefeated weekend to up his season record to 29-1 while Forest Walton went 13-1 in epee.
In addition to Viviani's 20-1 weekend, Brian Casas went 14-6 and also picked up his 100th career win.
Reserve Matt Castellan contributed a 10-2 record for the foil team while sabreman Matthew Peters went 7-3.
The Irish return to action next weekend when they travel to Duke to face Stanford, Air Force, Ohio State, North Carolina and the Blue Devils.
All Sports Stories for Tuesday, February 6, 2001
