March 3, 2007

Notre Dame, Ind. - Members of the Wayne State University men's fencing squad participated on Saturday in the individual portion of the Midwest Fencing Conference championship in the Joyce Center on the campus of the University of Notre Dame.

In the men's epee, two Warriors reached the finals in senior Marek Petraszek (Gliwice, Poland) and freshman Slava Zingerman (Ashkelon, Israel). Zingerman entered the day ranked seventh, while Petraszek was the No. 8 seed. Both WSU fencers went 5-0 (+18 in touches) during pool play.

Zingerman, the No. 3 seed for the round of 16, defeated Ohio State's Sean Harder, 15-12, before upending another Buckeye, Noam Gill, 15-11, in the quarterfinals. In the semifinals, Slava was a 15-10 victor over Notre Dame's Karol Kostka. Zingerman defeated teammate Petraszek 15-12 in the championship bout.

Petraszek reached the finals by defeating Cleveland State's Andy Snell (15-3), Ohio State's Christian Rivera (15-8), and Ohio State's Jason Pryor (15-13).

Also competing in the epee was senior Steve Znoy (Sterling Heights, Mich/Madison Heights Bishop Foley) the 12th seed. He compiled a 2-4 mark (-4 touches) in pool play and earned a 31st place finish.

In the men's sabre competition, senior Bobby Smith (Hillsborough, N.J.) was seed seventh. He had a 4-1 record (+5 touches) to earn a spot in the round of 16. Smith lost 15-5 to top seeded Sergey Smirnov of Ohio State. Smith finished 14th.

Junior John Rutherford (Sterling Heights, Mich./St. John) was the No. 12 seed and compiled a 2-3 mark (-5 touches) and was ranked 36th after the competition.

Freshman Patrick Tomlinson (Marysville, Mich.) entered the individual competition as the 34th seed and had a 2-4 mark (-8 touches) in pool play to finish 38th.

All three of WSU's the men's foil participants are freshmen -- Brandon Isaac (Taylor, Mich./Truman), Michal Brichacek (Windsor, Ont./St. Joseph's) and Cyrus Feldman (Clarkston, Mich.). They were ranked 14th, 54th and 59th entering pool play, respectively.

Isaac (2-3 +2 touches), Brichacek (1-4 -13 touches) and Feldman (0-5 -20 touches) failed to reach the round of 16. The final finishes were Isaac (38th), Brichacek (48th) and Feldman (tied-for-56th).

Team competition takes place on Sunday, March 4, with men's epee and sabre beginning at 8 a.m. The men's foil starts at 10 a.m.