March 18, 2006

Houston, Texas - The Wayne State University men's and women's fencing team is in seventh place heading into the final day of the 2006 NCAA Championship being held at the JW Marriott Hotel in Houston, Texas.

The Warriors have 67 points (bout victories). Harvard leads with 131 and is followed by Penn State (128), Notre Dame (127), Columbia (119), St. John's (114) and Ohio State (111).

The lone male competitor for WSU is junior Marek Petraszek (Gliwice, Poland). The 2005 national runner-up in the men's epee, Petraszek compiled a 9-5 record on Saturday and is in sixth place out of 24 participants. He is +11 in touches (54-43) and needs to finish in the top four to have a chance at reaching his second consecutive national final.

Ben Solomon (+27) from Princeton and Jason Stockdale (+18) from Air Force each went 12-2 on Saturday, while Ohio State's Denis Tolkachev had 11 wins. Rounding out the top five are Harvard's Benji Ungar (10 wins) and Air Force's Jackson Ranes (9 wins, +14 in touches).

All fencers have nine five-touch bouts on Sunday with the top four qualifying for direct elimination 15-touch bouts.

Results can be found at NCAA Sports.com.