Fencing: Team to send 12 to NCAAs

By NCAA rules, each university is only allowed 12 bids, which include two people of each gender for the three weapons. Competing for the men will be senior Mike Elfassy and sophomore Jonathan Yergler in epee, sophomore Robert Malcolm and junior Alexander Mills in foil and freshman Philip Dershwitz and senior John Stogin in saber. The women’s team will be sending sophomores Phoebe Caldwell and Hannah Safford for epee, freshmen Eve Levin and Hyun-Kyung Yuh for foil and sophomore Eliza Stone and freshman Diamond Wheeler for saber.

“We have a really deep team, and there are definitely more than two people on every squad that could have qualified if more spots were available,” Caldwell said.

“Personally, earning a bid to NCAAs is a great honor,” said Elfassy. “Qualifying for NCAAs is not only challenging because of the fencers in the field, but also because of the strength of our team. Because of how talented our team is and the limited spots, I feel lucky that I can compete and represent Princeton for a second, and final, time on the national level.”

After the regional tournament at Drew, the men’s and women’s teams knew they would be earning a strong showing for the NCAA finals. The Tigers swept both epee events: For the men, Kelley took first place, with Elfassy right behind him in second and Yergler in fourth; Safford came in first place for the women, and Caldwell finished in fifth.

In the sabre events, Stone finished in third place for the women, and Dershwitz and Stogin took fourth and fifth place on the men’s side, respectively. In foil, Levin and Yuh had second and third place finishes on the women’s side, respectively, and Mills had the top men’s place with fifth.

Caldwell and Safford attributed their success at regionals to their teamwork. “The tournament is exhausting mentally and physically, but we are really close as a team, and even though we were competing against each other for NCAA spots, we were still helping each other, coaching each other, and making sure that everyone was in the right frame of mind to fence well,” Caldwell said.

“Our team’s ability to pick one another up and cheer one another on really helped us to pull through bad bouts and keep a consistently strong performance overall,” Safford added.

With so many top-six finishes at regionals, it seemed likely that the Tigers would earn at least 10 bids to the finals.

Three days later, the official bids came out, and the team learned that, like last year, 12 fencers would compete.

According to Elfassy, the Tigers’ earning 12 spots in the finals was no surprise.

“It was always our goal to do that, from the beginning of the season to the very end and we’ve always known that we are skilled enough to do so,” he said.

Last year at the NCAA finals, Princeton finished in sixth place, the team’s best finish since 2003. This year, the goal is to finish in the top four, because fourth is the highest the team has ever placed.

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“This is a realistic goal considering that last year, Princeton was five bouts away from fourth,” Elfassy said.

At last season’s NCAA championships, Stogin finished 20th in sabre, and foilist Mills earned All-America honors with his 11th-place result.

On the women’s team, Stone took home an eighth-place finish and All-America status, while Caldwell claimed 15th-place as an epeeist.

The NCAA championships will take place March 24–27 at the Ohio State University. Princeton’s best-ever result was a fourth-place finish, earned in 1994, 1996, and 1999.