As most students enjoy their time away from school, 11 of Columbia’s best fencers will represent the Light Blue at the NCAA Championships. This past Sunday the Lions competed at the NCAA Northeast Regionals. Their effort earned the team two gold medals and the squad came home believing they would only be receiving 10 of the maximum 12 qualifying spots available to all teams.
“I think we’re in pretty good shape,” head coach George Kolombatovich said after Sunday’s Regionals. “We have high-level fencers and we just have to see what the other regions did to find out who qualified and who did not.”
At MIT, Columbia continued its recent strong run of play after putting together one of the team’s most complete performances at the IFA Championships the week before. Junior co-captain Daria Schneider, who had been missing most of the year with an ankle injury suffered at a world cup event prior to the Ivy Championships, won the Regionals after drawing the top seed.
“For Daria, it’s really just been a question of her ankle,” Kolombatovich said. “She just went out there and did a phenomenal job, one we know she was easily capable of.”
In addition to Schneider’s performance, senior co-captain Sherif Farrag won the men’s foil competition just a week after taking the gold medal at the IFA Championships, and two weeks after earning first-team All-Ivy honors.
Word came out late Tuesday from the NCAA how many fencers each team across the nation qualified for the chance to earn a national championship, and for Columbia that meant 11 Lions. The final fencer to qualify was sophomore foilist Abby Caparros-Janto, who did not earn an automatic berth after Sunday’s Regionals. Fewer foilists around the nation qualified than was initially expected, and as a result, Caparros-Janto’s score earned her an at-large bid.
In men’s epee, senior Lorenzo Casertano and junior Dwight Smith both qualified for the competition, making it the first time this specific duo will compete for the Lions at the NCAA Championships. 2008 first-team All-American Kurt Getz and Farrag both earned invites in men’s foil, and defending men’s sabre national champion Jeff Spear will look to win a second straight title after qualifying.
For the women, the Lions qualified the maximum number of six fencers for the event. In sabre, former national champion Schneider will be joined by 2008 second-team All-American Jackie Jacobson, who is making her second straight appearance at the NCAA Championships. Junior Tess Finkel, who makes her third trip the NCAA’s, is joined by freshman standout Neely Brandfield-Harvey in epee. In foil, at-large qualifier Caparros-Jantos will be competing alongside last year’s bronze medalist Nicole Ross, who makes her second trip in her two years at Columbia.
Even with the added bonus of Caparros-Jantos to the set of Columbia qualifiers, it will be difficult for the Light Blue to make a run at a combined national title as Notre Dame, Ohio State, and Penn State all qualified the maximum number of 12 fencers for the event. A single fencer gives a team significantly more power as that means 23 more bouts that can add to a win total. Still, the Lions qualified the most fencers of any team in the Ancient Eight for the third consecutive season, and two more than either Penn or Harvard.
Columbia begins the four-day NCAA Championships a week from Thursday at Penn State.