Fencing: Men's and women's teams head to Evanston for Northwestern Duals

After a long break from competition, the men’s and women’s fencing teams are ready to take on 13 teams at the Northwestern Duals this weekend in Evanston, Ill.

Both the men (5-0 overall) and women (4-1) will take on the No. 1 ranked Notre Dame squads. The two teams will also play Ohio State, Wayne State, Detroit, Cleveland State, Lawrence, Stanford, University of California San Diego, Cal Tech, North Carolina, Northwestern and Temple. The teams will split up slightly when the men play Fairleigh Dickinson.

The last time the Tigers competed together as a whole team was early December, when they fenced at the Sacred Heart Duals. The teams combined to go 9-1, with the men beating all five of their opponents, and the women losing only to Penn State by three bouts.

“We have had a long period without competition,” head coach Zoltan Dudas said. “We are very happy that we will finally have one. It will be a pretty long one, because we will be able to fence against 13 teams, which is a big load for two days.”

In the two months without meets, the fencers have stayed busy and focused, hoping to prepare for the Ivy League Championship, starting on Feb. 12. They practiced during finals and reading period and had an intense week of training during Intersession.

Besides training with the team, many fencers have been competing on the national level throughout December and January. Dudas noted that the Princeton fencers at the North American Cup performed very well in the five-touch bouts, which bodes well for their upcoming meets.

Coming into the Northwestern Duals, the women are ranked fourth and the men are ranked sixth. These rankings come mainly from the NCAA championships results and not previous dual meets this season.

Dudas expects to see close matches for the women against No. 9 Temple, No. 7 Northwestern, No. 10 Ohio State and top-ranked Notre Dame. He said that "we are up there with the top teams.”

“We are trying to steal as many bouts as we can from [Notre Dame],” Dudas said. “Last year, we had a close match with them [at the Northwestern Duals]; we were short by one touch. I hope we can get that close again or make an upset.”

The fencers are hoping to get some good preparation this weekend for the upcoming Ivy tournament. Last season, both the men's and women's teams took first place in league, and they are looking to defend their title. Princeton also hopes that the Northwestern Duals will put the team in a better position for the NCAA Championship qualifiers.

Despite a few injuries and the absence of some top fencers, who left to train for international competitions, Dudas has high hopes for the weekend and foresees that the freshman class can step up and do well.

The possibility of snow in Chicago might block the Tigers' way. The teams are keeping their fingers crossed that they will be able to make it to Northwestern to finally compete after a long wait for a meet.