Princeton University Athletics
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U-20 World Championship Bid, NCAA Regional Site Among Fencing News
February 23, 2012 | Men's Fencing, Women's Fencing
As the Princeton fencing team heads into a busy weekend of competition, the Tigers also had noteworthy developments away from the strip.
Freshman Katharine Holmes was invited to represent the United States at the Junior World Championship, an event for under-20 aged fencers that will take place in Moscow, Russia and will begin March 31, one week after the NCAA Championship at Ohio State.
One step before the Tigers send fencers to Columbus for the NCAA final, those same fencers will go through the NCAA regional qualifying process at a meet that has been announced to take place at Lafayette in Easton, Pa. The meet, which will be contested on March 10 this year, has been held at Drew University in Madison, N.J., in recent years.
A new CollegeFencing360.com ranking also came out recently with the Feb. 22 update on NCAA.com. Princeton's men are ranked No. 4 in the nation while the women are No. 3.
Two weeks after their dual Ivy League championships, the Princeton fencing programs will head to Philadelphia Saturday and New York Sunday for a pair of competitions.
Princeton will compete in the Temple Duals Saturday beginning at 10 a.m. The Tigers' first opponent will be Duke, ranked No. 8 in the men's poll. Penn State, ranked No. 2 in both the men's and the women's polls, will follow at 11:15 a.m. Princeton's men will take on No. 7 Penn at 2:15 p.m. while the women battle No. 5 St. John's at the same time. The Tiger men will take on No. 3 St. John's at 3:30 while the women face No. 7 Temple.
Sunday, the Tigers will compete in the National Squad Championships hosted by NYU. Princeton will be part of a large field that includes Brandeis, Columbia, Yeshiva, Vassar, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Wayne State, Northwestern, Air Force, North Carolina, NYU, Drew, Brown, Yale, St. John's, Stevens Tech, Haverford, Hunter College, Sacred Heart, Penn, Johns Hopkins and Fairleigh Dickinson.
The bouts will be a "relay" format, with 45 combined touches giving a team the win in the single-elimination competitions that will see anywhere between 16 and 24 teams competing in each weapon.
Men's epee and women's foil will get things started at 8 a.m., while men's foil and women's epee will start at 9:30 a.m. and both sabers at noon. The day will wrap with the gold medal saber bouts starting at 5 p.m.
The competitions will be Princeton's last before the NCAA regional on March 10.