Brown Fencing Opens Season at Big One with Three First Place Finishes

Providence, R.I. – The fencing squads opened up competition for the 2009-2010 season at the Big One at Smith College on Saturday.  Brown started off the season strong, winning three of six events on the day. 

In the men’s foil, Brown earned a first place finish out of 82 competitors with senior Adam Pantel (Mendham, NJ) leading the way.   Brown had four other athletes earn top-25 finishes including junior Jonathan Yu (Birmingham, AL) in eighth, junior Scott Phillips (Great Neck, NY) in ninth, sophomore Andrew Pintea  (New York, NY) in 24th and freshman James Golin in 25th place. 

In the women’s foil, Brown was led by freshman Avery Nackman (Katonah, NY) who also earned a first place finish.  Sophomores Vivian Truong (Brooklyn, NY) and Yukiko Kunitomo (Wellesley, MA) placed 12th and 25th, respectively.

Brown had a strong showing in the men’s epee event with six members placing in the top 46 out of 84 competitors.  Freshman Kelly McGuire (Park City, UT) led the team with a third place finish in the event.  Senior captain Henry Liu (Irvington, NY) placed 19th, junior Alex DiPaoli (Santa Barbara, CA) placed 29th, senior Adam Yarnell (Harrison, NY) placed 34th.  Junior Adam Zethraeus (London, UK) finished in 38th place and senior David Pagliaccio (Dobbs Ferry, NY) earned a 46th place finish for the Bears.

In the women’s epee, Brown had five finishers in the top 64.  The Bears were led by senior Robyn Thvedt (Tucson, AZ), who finished 16th out of 71 in the event.  Freshmen Kathy Nguyen (Roswell, CA) finished 24th, while teammate Shannon Johnson (Phoenix, AZ) earned a 45th place finish.  Sophomore Sarah Lu (Courbevoie, France) helped the team with a 52nd place finish and freshman Tanya Nguyen finished in 64th.

In the saber event, the men and women had three top finishers.  Freshman Teddy Weller led the men with a third place finish, while sophomore Peter Tyson (Stony Brook, NY) finished 6th.  Cheung Sang Woo (Tokyo, Japan) finished 46th out of 76 competitors.  Freshman Caitlin Taylor (Elk Grove, CA) led the women with a first-place finish out of 69 competitors, while senior captain Randy Alevi (Old Westbury, NY) finished 12th and freshman Jieran Cao (Nanjing, Jiangsu) finished 56th.

The Bears will be back in action on November 21st, when they host the Northeast Fencing Conference #1 event.