Women's fencing believes Ivy title within reach this season

Women's fencing stands poised to make a significant stab at this year's Ivy championship. Looking to build on last year's winning season (8-6 overall, 3-2 Ivy League), the team feels confident that an Ivy League championship is not far off.

"As long as we pull together as a team, I know we are better than those other teams." senior and captain Mindy Rostal said.

Despite having a strong recruiting class, the loss of all three of last year's starters, who comprised the No. 1 ranked epee squad, will no doubt be felt. They were the winners of last year's top honors for women's epee at the Intercollegiate Fencing Association Championship.

While the women had a difficult Ivy season last year, the team feels confident of the possibility for improvement this season. Columbia — a consistently strong team with more NCAA and Ivy Fencing Championships than any other team in the nation — will again pose one of the biggest challenges of the year for the Tiger squad. This is only compounded by the fact that an important member of the Princeton squad — freshman foil Jacqueline Leahy — will have to miss the Feb. 1 competition, which includes matches against St. John's, Columbia, and Rutgers, in order to compete in the Fencing World Cup in Germany. To offset the loss of the more experienced epee squad, this year's recruiting class includes some of the nation's best epee's including Libby Howard, Eleanor Leighton and Kira Hohensee. Both Leighton and Hohensee have consistently been ranked among the top eight in the country in the under-20 category. They are joining senior Jenn Golia to round off the Princeton squad.

Rostal returns to foil squad after missing an entire season. Studying abroad in Panama during last year's spring semester prevented her from competing in the 2001-2002 season. Also bolstering the strong foil squad is Leahy, who is ranked sixth in the country. Rounding out the foil squad are sophomore Inhwa Song, junior Crystal Jiang and freshman Sarit Kattan.

The sabre squad returns senior Maura Coleman, sophomores Catherine Pack and Lauren Hayward, and junior Laura Baker. Pack finished 16th in last year's NCAA fencing championships. In addition, freshman Caroline Block is joining the team.

Last weekend, the Tigers were amidst a tough group of competitors at Jadwin Gym. The women handily beat UNC and NYU. The Tigers defeated a very difficult Northwestern team by the score of 15-12.

Despite performing well for much of the day, the Tigers lost in a heated contest to last year's NCAA champions, Penn State, though they almost managed to topple the champs.

After beginning to figure out the new lineup, which will be missing some important contributors to last year's team, women's fencing stands ready for a competitive season.