M. and w. fencing poised to take IFA championships

When one thinks of the nation's oldest, annually contested collegiate championships, visions of Army/Navy or perhaps Harvard/Yale football come to mind. If those were your guesses you'd be wrong, for this weekend will mark the 106th meeting of the oldest collegiate championship in the United States, the 2003 Intercollegiate Fencing Association Championships.

The first IFA Championship was held at the New York Racquet and Tennis Club on May 5, 1894, in which Harvard defeated Columbia, 5-4.

Saturday, the Tigers will head to the Flynn Athletic Complex on the campus of Boston College to compete in this prestigious event. With over 300 athletes participating, Harvard and Columbia still remain among the teams to watch.

"IFA's is a very long and difficult tournament, but we're confident we will do well," said sophomore foil Scott Sherman.

The IFA's often prove to be as much about endurance as skill. The team competition will take place from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m followed by individual championships at 4 p.m. The grueling schedule will pit the Princeton men against 10 of the East's most accomplished squads while the women will face 11. Primarily composed of ECAC schools, the IFA tournament will include Boston College, Brandeis, Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New York University, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, Vassar and Yale.

Hoping to build off of last week's victories against Harvard and Yale, the men will meet many teams for a second time this year. Along with Harvard and Yale, the Tigers have defeated NYU, who will compete in the championships, and lost to Columbia and Penn, also competing. The Ivy League will no doubt dominate the tournament. While teams like MIT and Brandies have had successful seasons within their league, scoring against Ivy League teams has been difficult. MIT, which is 10-4, has had all its losses to Ivy League schools — even brand new programs like Brown.

Last year, senior Eddie Chou and junior Soren Thompsen each placed third in sabre and epee respectively to lead the men's fencing squad. Princeton's men placed fourth in sabre, fifth in foil, and second in epee.

The Princeton women will return to the IFA's after top finishes last year. With top three rankings in the 2002 epee and top 10 rankings in foil, the women certainly have high hopes. Look for sophomore foil Inhwa Song — who placed 11th in last year's in women's foil — to build upon last years success as well as last week's decisive win again Harvard.

"IFA championships look really good," captain Mindy Rostal said. "The only team we lost to that will be [at IFAs] is Columbia, and we shouldn't have lost to them anyway."

With victories over Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Penn and NYU, the women, who just let this year's Ivy championships slip through their fingers, will no doubt be among the teams to beat at IFA's. Columbia will provide their only significant obstacle.

While the team will no doubt end the day atop the leaderboard, the individual bouts will be no less exciting. Freshman foil Jaquline Leahy will likely be a force to reckon with. Sitting out the first two tournaments of the year, she was perhaps underestimated. Her first season here at Princeton has seen nothing but victories as she remains undefeated on the year. With all of last year's top 10 finnishers graduated, the Tigers will no doubt need her skill to help secure an IFA win.

March 8 will find both men and women heading to regionals at NYU for the NCAA qualifiers. The Tigers expect to send five out of a possible six fencers to the Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs over spring break to individually compete for this year's NCAA title. Heading down the home stretch, the Princeton Tigers still have a lot of fight left in them.