North America Cup Results
A contingent of New York University men's and women's fencers are competing at the North America Cup (NAC) in Virginia Beach, VA, from Friday, January 5, through Monday, January 8.
The Violets followed the first two days of competition with a busy Sunday.
On the men's side, the Violets began Sunday with five fencers competing in Division I Men's Foil. Senior
Philip Shin led the way with a third-place finish in the 256-person event, while junior
Kyle Welch (41st) and freshman
Zohaib Mannan (69th), finished in the top 100, as well.
Additionally, NYU had three teams participate in Senior Team Men's Epee. The foursome of
Hans Engel,
Alexandre Crepeaux,
Sam Bekker, and
Ian Sanders bested teams from Denver Fencing Center, Ni-Yack Yellow/White and top-seeded NYAC, before ultimately finishing in fourth place.
Also on Sunday afternoon, four fencers competed in Junior Men's Sabre, and freshmen
Bobby Cottingham (T-24th) and
Zachary Schindler (82nd) earned top-100 finishes in the field of 176.
The women began Sunday with Division I Women's Sabre. Freshman
Sabrina Zhao led the way with an 82nd-place finish in the field of 136. Following that, junior
Hannah Bennett competed in Division I Women's Epee and finished tied for 143rd.
Finally, on Sunday afternoon,
Anastasiya Muravyeva,
Tiffany Luong,
Rachel Yuen, and
Alisa Traskunov competed in Senior Team Women's Foil. The team finished in seventh place in the nine-team field.
On Saturday, men's team members Shin, Welch, Mannan, and sophomore
Michael Lee earned a bronze medal in the 20-team Senior Team Men's Foil event. The Violets defeated teams from Fencing Sports Academy (45-20) and South Brooklyn Fencing (45-25) to advance to the semifinals. The group then dropped a match to the University of California-San Diego by a score of 45-30, but followed that with a 45-34 victory over Fencers Club International to capture third place.
Additionally, six men's fencers competed in Division I men's foil and nine competed in Division I men's epee.
Leading the way for the Violets was
Grant Williams in foil and Sanders in epee. Williams finished ninth out of 178 fencers, while Sanders tied for 75th in the 285-man pool.
Thomas Bergman (98th),
Mickey Bak (109th), Schindler (T-125th), Cottingham (151st) and
Matt Chen (T-158th) also competed in sabre, while
Jason Suh (107th),
Nicholas Yang (131st), Bekker (137th),
Tad Lundborg (T-143rd), Engel (150th), Crepeaux (208th),
Lucas Hsing (T-255th) and
Benjamin Poleretzky participated in the epee competition.
On the women's side, the team of senior
Stephanie Cunningham, Bennett and sophomores
Eileen Wang and
Rachel Wu finished 19th in Senior Team Women's Epee on Saturday.
Five women's fencers also competed individually in the second day of competition. Freshman
Sabrina Zhao (71st) and sophomore
Audrey Edgington (112th) participated in Junior Women's Sabre, while Yuen (T-92nd), and freshmen
Tiffany Luong (109th) and
Esther Seligson (159th) took part in Junior Women's Foil.
On Friday's first day of competition, Bak, Williams, Chen and Schindler captured the bronze medal in the Senior Team Men's Sabre event.
The foursome won its Round of 8 match before falling in the semifinals.
However, the Violets came back to win the third-place match by a score of 45-38 over Canada 2.
"We lost a close match (45-41) to the University of Pennsylvania in the semis, but we defeated the second Canadian team for the bronze," explained Head Coach
Steve Mormando. "It's a very tough competition this year."
The NYU women also competed on Friday, with Muravyeva finishing 67th and Luong taking 95th place in Division I Women's Foil.
The competition resumes on Monday at 8:00 am.
