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Expectations were extremely high for the Penn men's fencing team coming into the Intercollegiate Fencing Association Championships held at Boston College this weekend. After taking home the Little Iron Man Trophy for the top foil team last season, as well as an individual foil title for current junior Jeff Breen, the Quakers had their eyes not only on reclaiming these trophies, but also on the overall team title. But it wasn't Penn's day. The Quakers finished fifth overall as a men's team and fourth in the six-weapon category (men and women combined). Unable to defend its Little Iron Man, the Penn foil squad placed third, with Breen finishing ninth overall. The Red and Blue also came in sixth in both sabre, winning just 12 of 30, and epee, claiming 17 victories. The IFA's featured some of the East Coast's best fencing squads -- Penn, Brown, Columbia, Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Boston College, M.I.T., Vassar, NYU and Brandeis. Columbia, the only one of these teams to defeat the Quakers in a dual meet this season, dominated the three-weapon competition, winning 72 of 90 bouts on the day. Princeton finished second (63 victories), followed by Harvard (56) and Yale (52). The Lions were able to steal the Little Iron Man from the Quakers this year, taking 27 of 30 foil bouts. Columbia finished just short of a clean sweep, finishing second in both sabre and epee, and coming up only two bouts short in both weapons. The Lions also took home the six-weapon title, beating the next-best squad, Princeton, by nine bouts. Harvard took the sabre crown, winning 26 of 30, while Princeton claimed the epee title with 23 victories. After the first day of team competition, the IFA's top 16 individual performers in each weapon returned Sunday for a tournament to decide the meet's best fencers. The Quakers qualified four competitors -- freshman sabre Mark Kindrachuk, foils Andy Radu and Breen, and senior epee Dan Borden. Kindrachuk was seeded sixth in the sabre tournament, matched up in the first round against tenth-ranked David Jakus of Harvard. Jakus was able to pull the upset, winning, 15-7. Yet he lost in the second round to No. 2 Paul Friedman of Brown. Jakus' teammate, Tim Hagermen, the tourney's top seed, took the individual sabre crown, defeating Friedman in the finals. Kindrachuk finished tied for tenth on the day with Vassar's Justin Bernstein. The individual foil tournament saw Breen attempting to reclaim his title, ranked second in the field, while teammate Radu was seeded 14th. Breen faced No. 15 Nico Jaspers of Columbia in round one, falling 15-13. Radu squared off with Jaspers' teammate, Jeremy Sinkin, in his opening bout, also losing 15-11. Yale's Cory Werk won the individual gold medal in foil, defeating Sinkin in the championship round. Borden was ranked 11th in the epee field and matched up against No. 6, M.I.T.'s Sam Korb, in the opening frame. Like his other Penn teammates, Borden was also bounced in his first match, losing to Korb 15-11. Princeton's Soren Thompson emerged victorious from the epee tournament, with Borden finishing twelfth.

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