M. Fencing opens strong

With the score tied at 13 heading into the final bout against Ohio State at the Penn State multi-meet, Penn senior epee Scott Eriksen stepped onto the strip.

"It was a pretty intense match," Eriksen said. "I just figured the other guy was just as nervous."

Within seconds, he turned his opponent into Buckeye puree.

"I got the first touch, which just provides a little bit of insurance," he said. "I knew I just had to stay up and not make any mistakes and just let him come to me."

Eriksen carried the momentum of his first stab into a 5-3 triumph. The win finished off the No. 8 team in the country and preserved the Quakers' flawless record.

"Scott needed to win the bout, and he came through," Penn sophomore foilist Andy Radu said. "He won three bouts for us that day against a strong Ohio State epee team, so that was pretty money for us."

Eriksen's performance would have been in vain without the utter domination of the foilists, who blanked the Buckeyes, 9-0.

"They have a sabre squad that's extremely strong, and an epee squad that's quite strong," Radu said. "So the foil team knew we had to beat them into the ground."

In addition to their sweep of OSU, the foilists trounced the rest of the competition. With the exception of a single loss to UNC early on, the foilists didn't drop a single match at Penn State.

"It's pretty plain that at this point our men's foil team is a very, very strong team," Penn coach Dave Micahnik said. "They pulled some of these meets out for us when some of the other weapons were defeated.

"It was just a spectacular performance. We just blew them away."

Senior team captain James Benson agreed that without heroics of the foilists, the Red and Blue would not have swept the competition.

"Foil was definitely there the whole way," Benson said. "There's no way we would've beaten UNC or Ohio State without the strength in the foil team that we do have."

The other two-thirds of the Quakers didn't fare well. Though the epees swept Hunter, 9-0, they dropped the remainder of their matches.

The sabres were dominated by OSU, 8-1, and also lost to UNC, 6-3. They saved face, however, with wins against Hunter, 8-1, and Duke, 6-3.

"The sabres are still kind of finding themselves," Micahnik said. "They have to get action to get experience.

"The epee team was overall pretty inconsistent."

Though the epee and sabre squads were not perfect, Penn's 4-0 record in Happy Valley left little room for complaints.

"As an ideal, we pretty much did everything we were supposed to do," Radu said. "We beat all the teams.

"I was impressed. I think we definitely pulled it together."

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