March 13, 2013

FENCING | Red Competes at NCAA Regionals

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The Cornell fencing team competed at the NCAA Northeast Regional Tournament, held on March 10 at St. John’s University. “It’s incredibly competitive, the number of people that will compete at nationals is very limited,” said assistant coach Oleg Brusilovsky said.  “Of course every school brings the best fencers and its very tough and the region itself is incredibly strong.”A field of 144 fencers will compete at NCAA Nationals from March 21-24. Although the tournament was based on individual results, there was an immense amount of team effort from the Red leading up to the day of competition, according to senior captain Beverly Yang.  “Physically we were extremely well prepared, this has been one of the most rigorous seasons we’ve had and we’ve been training really smartly,” she said. “We’ve been pushing ourselves.” Five Big Red fencers finished regionals in the top 15, and all three foilists for the Cornell team qualified for the national tournament.  Freshman Angelica Gangemi and junior April Whitney excelled in the rankings.  Gangemi entered the tournament ranked eleventh overall but finished sixth to lead Cornell’s foil team, while Whitney placed twelfth.  “Our previous performance at Ivy supports this idea well, so this whole entire season was really uphill move for the team, and we consider that a success,” Brusilovsky said.  Cornell will be sending two foilists, Whitney and Gangemi, to compete in Nationals from March 21-24 in San Antonio, TX.

Original Author: Marissa Velasquez