NCAA Championships
Site
The Particulars
The Harvard fencing team will send
nine members, including five women and four men, to the NCAA
Championships hosted by Penn State at the Ashenfelter Multi-Sport
Facility in State College, Pa. The championships will begin
Thursday, March 19 and conclude Sunday, March 22.
Harvard is looking to improve on
its sixth-place finish a year ago and has the sixth-most qualifiers
for this year's championship. Notre Dame, Ohio State and Penn
State have the maximum number of 12 fencers going, while Columbia
has 11, St. John's has 10 and Penn qualified nine.
The NCAA Championships include
individual events in each of the six weapons (women's foil,
women's epee, women's sabre, men's foil,
men's epee, men's sabre).
Fencers will compete in a round-robin format of five-touch bouts.
After the round-robin, the top four fencers in each event will
fence direct elimination 15-touch bouts for first, second and third
places. An institution's place finish in the
championships will be based on points earned by each individual.
Crimson Qualifiers
Freshman Noam Mills and senior Maria Larsson each earned bids to the
championships in the women's epee. Mills recently won
the gold medal at the NCAA Regionals and was a first-team All-Ivy
League honoree in her rookie season after going 17-1 at the Ivy
League Championships. Larsson, who finished 11th at last
year's NCAA meet, won the silver at the NCAA regional competition
and has been an All-Ivy League selection the last two years.
Larsson was 14-4 at the Ivy meet.
Senior foil fencer Emily Cross, an
individual national champion in 2005 and an Olympic silver medalist
in 2008, is a two-time All-American and a three-time All-Ivy
first-team choice. A Crimson co-captain, she posted a 16-2
record at the Ivy League Championships this season and won the gold
medal at NCAA Regionals. Freshman Shelby MacLeod, who recently won the bronze at
the NCAA regional meet, also qualified for the NCAA meet and
recorded a 9-4 mark at this year's Ivy League Championships.
Freshman sabre fencer Caroline
Vloka was 16-2 overall against Ivy opponents in her rookie
campaign. She placed fifth at the NCAA Regionals and won the
gold at the IFA Championships as a well as the Garret Penn State
Open.
On the men's side, senior co-captain Benjamin Ungar and junior Karl Harmenberg were chosen to fence in the
epee. Ungar, a 2006 individual national champion, is a
two-time All-Ivy League first-team recipient. Ungar posted an
11-1 mark at this year's Ivy League Championship and won gold at
the IFA Championships before taking fifth at the NCAA Regionals
March 8. Harmenberg was an All-Ivy second-team honoree and
claimed the gold medal at the NCAA Regionals. He boasted a
10-5 record at the Ivy League Championships.
In the men's foil, senior co-captain Kai
Itameri-Kinter will represent the Crimson at the NCAA
Championships after taking the bronze at the NCAA Regionals.
Itameri-Kinter went 9-6 at the Ivy meet this season and is a
two-time All-Ivy League choice. He was also an All-American
in 2006 after placing sixth at the national tournament.
Freshman sabre fencer Valentin
Staller garnered first-team All-Ivy League honors. He
went 15-3 at the Ivy meet and took home the silver medal at the
NCAA Regionals.
Last Year at NCAAs
The Crimson
placed sixth overall and earned several All-America
selections. Edward
SherrillSteve Ahn '08
was 12th in the sabre division and received All-America honorable
mention. '08 finished fifth in the epee to garner
All-America second-team honors, and
Alexa Weingarden '08 grabbed eighth in
the women's sabre and was tabbed to the All-America second
team.
