For Galligan and eight others, the road ends in N.J.

Another fencing season is drawing to a close. For Michael Galligan, it will be his final one at Penn.

Although the team's qualifiers were having fun and joking during the car ride over to Madison, N.J., to participate in the four-day NCAA Championships starting today, the Quakers still had mixed emotions about the seniors' final hurrah.

"It's actually very strange," Galligan said. "I'm packing up my bag, and I was thinking that it's probably one of the last times I'll ever do this for competition."

Now, he is fighting to extend his career.

Galligan has qualified all four years to the championships. As a foilist, he came in ninth place the three previous years of the competition. If he does not break the top eight this weekend, Galligan joked that he would be happy with another ninth-place finish so he could have a four of a kind.

The team qualified a total of nine fencers to the competition, a capper to a successful season. Qualification to the championships depends on a combination of the fencers' performances during the regular season and at Regionals.

On the men's team, Galligan, junior Ron Berkowsky, sophomores Benjamin Wieder and Matthew Kolasa and freshman Andrew Bielen qualified. Four women qualified: sophomores Abby Emerson, Ilana Sinkin and Cassandra Partyka and freshman Alexis Baran.

"It's a representation of how well we have done this year and how far we've worked, the fact that we've come this far," Baran said, talking about the championships.

The fencers are expecting an impressive showing at the championships this year. Kolasa noted that Penn is bringing "almost a full team of both the men's and women's . in all weapons."

Considering the team garnered ninth place overall last year, Kolasa said the team would "hopefully break the top five."

The competition will start off with the 24 fencers in each weapon participating in a round-robin competition of five-touch bouts. The top four performers in the round robin will fence in 15-touch bouts for placement in the top four spots. Teams will be awarded a point for each bout won by their fencers.

The Quakers feel well prepared to take on the competition from the experience they gained during the regular season.

"We're probably one of the most-prepared teams coming in because we fence in one of the toughest conferences in the nation," Galligan said.

Furthermore, Kolasa noted that the team would be fencing against many of the same fencers they have already faced during regular-season competition.

There is a crucial difference, however, between the setup of the championships and the regular season. While the team only fences one-day meets during the regular season, the championships will be a "more intense" multiple-day affair, Baran noted.

So with a mix of anticipation and sadness, Penn's fencing teams can close out this season with a bang.

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