March 18, 2006
HOUSTON, TEXAS - With just one day of fencing to go in the NCAA Championships, it's a real dogfight among six colleges, and Columbia is one of them. The Lions are fourth with 119 victories (points), eight behind third-place Notre Dame and three ahead of fifth-place St. John's.
Harvard has moved into first place with 131 victories, overtaking Penn State, which had led through the women's now-completed competition. Notre Dame is third with 127, while Columbia's 119 leads St. John's, with 114, and Ohio State, with 111. Those six sort of have the tournament all to themselves; Wayne State is seventh with 67, more than 40 behind Ohio State. Princeton has 61.
The Lions have received 16 victories from men's foil and 15 from men's sabre. Men's epee has just eight wins, but only one representative.
Junior Scott Sugimoto (Pacific Palisades, Calif.) led Columbia's foil fencers on the first day with nine victories in 14 bouts, ranking him seventh of the 24 competitors, who are headed by Andras Horanyi and Boaz Ellis, both from Ohio State, with 13 victories each. Penn's Ron Berkowsky has 12 and Stanford's Steve Gerberman has nine. Lion junior Calvin Chen (Mercer Island, Wash.) is 13th with seven wins and seven losses.
"I wasn't fencing extremely well in the beginning," Sugimoto admitted. "I lost a couple I shouldn't have. But when I fenced Andras Horanyi, I got to thinking what I was doing wrong.
"After that, I won my last four bouts, fencing very well at the end of the day. Hopefully, that will continue into tomorrow."
Men's sabre star James Williams (Sacramento, Calif.) was eighth after the first day, with 10 victories in 14 bouts. Notre Dame's Patrick Ghattas led all sabre fencers with a perfect 14 for 14, while four men were tied with 12 wins each -- Jason Rogers and Adam Crompton of Ohio State, Franz Boghicev of Penn State, and Tim Hagamen of Harvard.
Crompton, a three-time All-American, lost only to Ghattas, 5-4, and Williams, 5-2.
"I think the defeat of Adam Crompton was my most gratifying of the day," Williams said. "I'm really happy about beating him. I was in control, in his face the whole time."
First-year epeeist Dwight Smith also made the top 10 in his weapon. Smith (Elmont, N.Y.) won eight of 14, placing him ninth. Ben Solomon of Princeton and Air Force Academy cadet Jason Stockdale are tied for first with 12 victories.
Smith began the day with not one, but two shockers, upsets of Harvard's Julian Rose and Benji Ungar. He beat the two, both New Yorkers, by identical 5-2 scores. He also defeated the pacesetting Stockdale, 5-2.
"I'm so proud of all our fencers," head coach George Kolombatovich said. "They are fencing with all the effort they can. We are in good position to finish in the top five again.
"With the kind of effort we saw today, they should be in the top five at the end of fencing tomorrow."
