Women's Fencing Lands Two in NCAAs

1998-99 was a transitional year for the Harvard fencing teams, and the women and men weathered it with very different degrees of success.

Although the women's team (7-3, 2-3 Ivy) fenced strongly during the regular season, it dropped out of contention for the Ivy title when it was swept by Princeton and three-time defending champion Yale Feb. 20 at the Malkin Athletic Center.

Despite solid representation from the foilists and a 5-3 upset of Princeton's Orsi Szotyory-Grove--who finished third at the Intercollegiate Fencing Association (IFA) Championships--by freshman Nicole Jarrett, the Tigers rolled, 22-10 and the Bulldogs followed suit, topping Harvard 24-6.

"For a week and a half leading up to the tournament, everyone was pretty excited," said women's captain Gabrielle Novacek. "Then when we got to the actual date, it looked as if some of the fire had been lost. Everyone seemed to be really tired and quite a few of our fencers had been sick."

The women wrapped up their regular season by placing fourth of 13 teams at the IFA Championships at Cornell Feb. 27-28.

That finish included a third-place team showing in the foil division, keyed by top-15 performances from sophomore Tammy Knutsen (ninth), plus freshmen Emily Katz (11th) and Ellen Schulz (15th).

Senior Valerie Uzzell added an ninth-place finish in the epee.

The women also succeeded in landing two fencers in the NCAA tournament--Katz in the foil and senior Elizabeth Aranow in the epee. Both battled to top-24 national finishes, with Katz landing 19th and Aranow 22nd.

Aranow's achievement was particularly impressive since she had switched from foil to epee at the beginning of the season, and the two events typically require different strategies and fencing skills.

The men's team (1-7, 0-4 Ivy) struggled to replace a crop of graduates and maintain a full roster, and its primary goal became building a cohesive team around a strong freshman class.

"It would be fair to call this a rebuilding year," said co-captain-elect Davin Chew. "We lost a good senior in Mike Gattnar and we had trouble putting together a full roster all year."

Gattnar earned First-Team All-American honors last season after winning the epee division of IFAs, and later placed fifth at NCAAs.

The Crimson placed 11th of 12 teams at IFAs, a performance redeemed by sophomore co-captain-elect Eugene Cha's eighth-place finish in the epee.

"We had freshmen filling in several starting positions because of the lack of numbers," Chew said. "It was tough keeping morale up, but this year was about proving something to ourselves, and about getting the freshmen's feet wet, and just doing the best that we could."

Harvard will begin the 1999-2000 campaign with two new slates of sabre fencers. The men's team graduates all of its sabres, and next season will represent the first that the IFA and NCAA will recognize women's sabre.

The Crimson will also lose Coach Ben Zivkovic, who retired this season after 23 years of mentoring the Harvard fencing program. Zivkovic's squads won seven league and national titles, more than at any other time in school history.