March 24, 2007

Stats

Madison, N.J. - Four members of the Wayne State University women's fencing squad began their 2007 NCAA Championship experience on Saturday at Drew University's William E. and Carol G. Simon Forum and Athletic Center.

Two-time NCAA Champion Anna Garina (Kiev, Ukraine) won all 14 of her five-touch bouts and is in first place after day one of the women's epee. Teammate Justyna Konczalska (Innsbruck, Austria) sits in seventh place with an 8-6 mark (+7 in touches). Both fencers have nine bouts on Sunday to conclude the round-robin portion of the competition. The top four fencers in each event will fence direct elimination 15-touch bouts for first, second, third and fourth place. Absolute ties for the seeding will be broken as follows: for positions one through three, by a coin toss; for position four, by a fence-off.

WSU also had two fencers competing in the sabre. Junior Kasia Kuzniak (Konin, Poland) is currently 13th with a 6-8 record (+3 in touches), while freshman Ann Bartoszewicz (Macomb, Mich./Eisenhower) is 24th with a 2-12 mark (-37 in touches).

Warrior fencers recorded 30 victories on Saturday moving Wayne State up two places to eighth in the team standings with 63 points. An institution's place finish in the championships will be based on points earned by each individual. A team will be awarded one point for each victory by its student-athletes for the duration of the championships.

Penn State leads the overall team championship with 150 points and is followed by St. John's (142), Columbia (137), Notre Dame (130), Ohio State (120), Harvard (99) and Penn (87). WSU moved ahead of Stanford (57) and Princeton (48) during Saturday's competition.