McCullough, Crompton, Viviani Sobieraj, Debic notch strong
By MATT LOZAR
Sports Writer
Several Notre Dame fencers earned individual honors at the NCAA Championships this past weekend.
Senior women's sabre captain Carianne McCullough, a former walkon, achieved third team All-American honors in her final NCAA competition. Her 12-11 record put McCullough in 12th place and made her an All-American for the first time.
"It was really more to help the team than to get All-American," she said. "I mean sure it was in the back of your head. We had the last six bouts to try and get the most wins."
After finishing the first day in ninth place, McCullough won four matches on day two to accomplish her goal of earning All-American status.
McCullough finished in 19th in 2000 and 15th in 2001 at the NCAA Championship. In 2002, she compiled a 42-9 regular season record and a 161-38 career record. At the Midwest Conference Championships, McCullough took third and she finished second at the regional competition.
Teammate sophomore Destanie Milo combined with McCullough to give the Irish 20 points in women's sabre to finish sixth overall.
In men's sabre, senior captain Andre Crompton used an 8-1 record on the second day of the sabre competition to finish in fifth and was second team All-American for the second straight year. Crompton went 18-5 and lost the tiebreaker on indicators (touches earned minus touches received) to miss out on first team All-American honors.
Knowing a win might put him in the top four, Crompton battled back to win his final bout 5-4.
"I was down 4-2 in my last collegiate bout ever. [I thought] just relax and pull it together," Crompton said. "It was the last touch of my collegiate career and I just wanted to finish strong."
A 10-4 record on day one put Crompton in fifth. He made an inspired run on Sunday, losing only to two-time champion Ivan Lee of St. John's.
"I fenced better and stronger than [Saturday]," Crompton said. "I think what really helped was the six of us [male fencers] had a meeting and we talked about what we needed to do to win."
Crompton and junior Matt Fabricant combined to win 27 bouts and finish fourth overall.
Junior epee captain Jan Viviani finished fifth to earn All-American honors for the third consecutive year. He finished 17-6 and missed first team All-American by one victory.
After starting Saturday by going undefeated in his first two rounds, Viviani did not have energy to keep up the strong start in the last four rounds.
"I got a little tired. I think things were going so well, that you stop thinking about things," Viviani said. "Sometimes it helps, but I think it hurt a little. In certain situations, I probably should have been a little different."
In the regular season, Viviani went 42-3 and his winning percentage of .933 was third best in epee history. His career record of 118-14 gives him a winning percentage of .894 and is the best in career epee winning percentage. Viviani won the conference championship for the first time this season and finished second at regionals.
Midwest Regional champion freshman Michal Sobieraj rebounded after a tough first day to finish with 12 wins and earn third team All-American. Sobieraj and Viviani combined to win 29 bouts and finish in a tie for second overall.
After a foot injury caused him to finish fifth at last year's NCAA Championships, junior foil captain, Ozren Debic, finished fourth this year, returning to the first team All-American status he attained as a freshman. By earning first team All-American, Debic was the fourth Irish fencer in 2002 to earn that honor, the most in Irish history.
Debic went 18-5 in pool play but expended so much energy attempting to earn as many points for the team as possible, he ran out of gas in his semifinal and third-place match.
"I did not have the energy to compete with those guys on a high level," Debic said. "Both of them [St. John's Jonathan Tiomkin and Stanford's Steve Gerberman] are good fencers. But if I was not even 90 or 100 percent, if I was fencing well, then I would have won at least one."
Freshman Derek Snyder joined Debic on the men's foil team this year. Snyder went 15-8 at the NCAA Championship, including 7-2 on the second day. His efforts earned him second team All-American.
"I'm somewhat satisfied. My goal was to make top four, but I missed that by a little bit," Snyder said. "I think the first day we kind of lost our cool as far as judging and stuff like that, so we lost our focus a little bit. The second day we did a lot better."
Debic and Snyder had 33 total wins to finish in a tie for second overall.
All Sports Stories for Tuesday, March 26, 2002
