NCAA Fencing

jon abbey

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I am sure no one here cares about this but me, but my alma mater Columbia is looking good to win their first national title since the dynasty run I was involved in during my time there (5 titles and 3 runners-up from 1986-1993, I was co-captain of the first two title teams in 1987 and 1988). They have inexplicably conjoined men's and women's results since the early nineties for one combined title, results are being updated here:
 
http://www.escrimeresults.com/NCAA/ncaa2015.html
 

jon abbey

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Notre Dame is making a run now, Columbia is up by 3 bouts with 72 left for both Columbia and Notre Dame. 
 
Columbia was ranked #1 in both men and women coming into this, it would be a bad loss if they didn't manage to win. Ohio St already beat them for 1st on the men's side and now Notre Dame is winning the women's side handily. 
 

SoxJox

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As a Penn State alum, I follow the sport every year.  They had a relatively down year record wise, but remained dangerous at the individual level, as Freshman Andre Mackiewicz showed with a championship in Saber, and Nobuo Bravo (great name!) with a runner-up in Foil.  They're positioned well in Women's Saber after 3 rounds, with Freshman Karen Chang and Sophomore Theodora Kakhiani in 2nd and 3rd.  
 
The team is very young but doing well after the retirement of legendary Emmanuil Kaidanov, who accumulated 12 national championships.  New coach Wes Gion won the national title last year in his first turn as head coach.  Many seniors graduated, leaving him with a young but capable team.  On the men's side, there's only 5 Seniors on the 30-man roster.  On the women's side, there are only 3 Seniors on the 27-woman roster.  The next 3-4 years ought to be great.
 

jon abbey

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Penn State were our main national rivals back in the day, they had a controversial firing of their long-time coach last year. 
 
Columbia is positioned pretty well going into the last day, but Notre Dame and Penn St. are definitely both still alive. 
 

SoxJox

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jon abbey said:
Penn State were our main national rivals back in the day, they had a controversial firing of their long-time coach last year. 
 
Columbia is positioned pretty well going into the last day, but Notre Dame and Penn St. are definitely both still alive. 
Controversial, yes.  Manny would say he was forced to "retire".  He sued but I don't know what the outcome was.
 

jon abbey

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Columbia finishes off their first NCAA title since 1993, although they are lucky it's a combined title, as Ohio State would have won the men's and Notre Dame the women's. Penn State took second on a tiebreaker over Notre Dame. 
 

mabrowndog

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Just saw that next year's NCAA championships are in Waltham MA (Brandeis). What's the typical spectator situation at these events? Is it dead silence like at a curling rink? Because having cheerleaders, pep bands and rabid students chanting at a fencing tournament would be pretty awesome.
 
FWIW, 2017 is in Fisher, Indiana (hosted by Notre Dame) and 2018 is at Penn State.
 

jon abbey

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With the caveat that I haven't been in 25 years (two years after I graduated, Columbia flew me to the NCAAs to help coach the team because my brother had to fill in as a last-minute emergency injury replacement), there's not a lot of attendance. Coaching from the sidelines between points is banned, same as tennis, but often ignored, same as tennis. Cheering during action doesn't make a whole lot of sense because you don't want to break the focus of the fencers even momentarily and also the action is often very quick.
 
I do remember at one of the big preseason tournaments, I was fencing the #1 guy for Notre Dame in the round of 8, and since we (Columbia) had 4-5 fencers left in that round and Notre Dame only had the one, he had quite a few people cheering for him. They gradually walked away over the course of the bout as I kicked his ass, though. :)
 

SoxJox

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I'm glad to see that they're expanding beyond Columbus, OH.  I mean 5 of the last 8 championships have been held there.  What's up with that?
 
Mark, if you want to attend, you won't need to pay scalper's prices.  You should be able to walk right up.  Most of the modern championship venues still put the spectators a ways away from what IMHO should be a very intimate sport.  Alas.  Even so, as jon ab suggests, the action is often very, very fast. And if you're not up on the rules (INE), it can be quite confusing between foil, saber, and epee (although most distinctions are between weapon characteristics, clothing and equipment).  Sometimes it seems as though scoring is near invisible (most so with epee), although today it is aided by electronics (much more controversy in the olden days when the judges' eyes were the official lens).
 
Official rules were revised before 2014 and can be found here.
 

jon abbey

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bump...

Columbia is trying to repeat as NCAA champions, they are one of four teams to qualify the maximum 12 fencers (Notre Dame, Princeton, St. John's are the others). The tournament starts next Thursday at Brandeis and goes through Sunday.