Irish sit in second place after first day of nationals
By MIKE CONNOLLY
Sports Writer
KENOSHA, Wisc.
St. John's played a game of "anything you can do, we can do better" with Notre Dame on the first day of the NCAA Fencing Championships at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside.
The Red Storm ended the opening day of competition in first place with 65 points compared to the Irish second place total of 53. Penn State, Stanford and Princeton rounded out the top five with 48, 43 and 41 points respectively.
Everything Notre Dame did well on Thursday, St. John's did a little bit better.
The Irish placed Andre Crompton and Andrzej Bednarski third and fourth in sabre with a combined 21 wins but Keeth Smart and Ivan Lee of St. John's held the top two spots with 26 combined wins.
In foil, All-American Ozren Debic ended the day in sixth place with a 10-4 record but still trailed St. John's Joseph Fisher who led all foilists with a 13-1 record.
Jan Viviani finished the day strong for the Irish winning seven of his last eight bouts to place fifth at the end of four rounds but St. John's Alex Royblat held the fourth position.
"That's part of competition," head coach Yves Auriol said. "It could be better but it could be worse. We had a slow start in epee today, particularly with [junior Brian] Casas but he came back nicely."
At the end of four rounds, Casas stands in 17th place with a 6-8 record but showed signs of improvement in round four. After beginning the day 3-8, Casas won all three bouts in round four. The highlight of the round was his 5-4 win against Princeton's Soren Thompson who lost only twice Thursday and held first place in epee.
Throughout the day, Casas performed better against tougher opponents. He beat top fencers like Thompson, Viviani and Adam Wiercioch of Penn State who finished the day in third place with a 11-3 record but lost to many mediocre opponents. Casas' struggles with lesser fencers spread throughout the team, according to Auriol.
"Today we did better against better fencers," he said. "When we fenced fencers from the top teams, we fenced better. We cannot drop bouts against so-so schools, which is what we did today. We lost bouts we never should have lost."
Foilist Forrest Walton also struggled for the Irish Thursday. The sophomore won only six bouts and finished the day in 17th place.
Walton and Debic faced some of their toughest competition Thursday. They opened the day against Stanford and its set of brother foilists Ñ Felix and Florian Reichling. Both fencers have experience with the German national team and Felix is the reigning NCAA foil champion.
While Debic managed to win the bout against Florian, Felix swept the Irish and thoroughly dominated Debic in a rematch of the 2000 foil finals, 5-1.
"That was tough luck," he said. "Our first match was against them and I wasn't really ready."
A chipped bone in his foot is also bothering Debic. He injured it a week ago and the recovery has been slow.
"It is getting better but I am definitely not fencing the way I would usually," Debic said. "I am much more static."
Despite his painful foot, Debic still picked up a few impressive victories including a dominating 5-1 defeat of Columbia's Jed Dupree. The loss to Debic was Dupree's only defeat in the first four rounds.
St. John's 12-point lead after the first day poses a threat to Notre Dame's victory plan. With a men's team that is much stronger than the women's team, the Irish hoped to build a big lead after the first two days of competition and protect the lead on the last two days. Now they that are trailing after the first day, the Irish must re-evaluate their strategy but still think they can overtake the Redstorm.
"I wouldn't say we are going to catch them [Friday] but we are definitely going to close the gap," Viviani said. "They had a lot going for them today and we had a lot go against us today but hopefully that will change [Friday]."
The Irish will benefit from an easier schedule in some weapons. Epee has already fenced St. John's and Penn State. Foil has already faced Stanford and Columbia and will get a chance to face St. John's head to head today. St. John's has a much tougher schedule today.
Sabre has the toughest schedule today with matches against St. John's and Wayne State but Notre Dame's best fencers are looking forward to the greater challenge and the chance to deal Smart his first loss.
"Me and Andrzej have been fencing really hard and I think tomorrow we are going to show them up," Crompton said. "I know Keeth is undefeated but hopefully after he meets us he won't be."
The large deficit and strong performance by St. John's on the opening day, however, has led some Irish fencers to re-evaluate their chances for a team title.
"Anything is possible but when you get to the logistics of it, it is pretty much a fight for second," Bednarski said.
All Sports Stories for Friday, March 23, 2001
