The past few weeks have provided numerous national fencing tournaments featuring current collegiate men's epeeists (as well as some incoming college fencers and noteworthy college-fencing alums). Here's a rundown for some of the recent tournament action, plus some updated notes on the national/international rankings and results:
(Note: CF360 is in the process of confirming official college commitments; a handful that have been confirmed are referenced below.)
SUMMER NATIONALS (late-June/early-July; Grapevine, TX)
Benji Ungar (left)
HARVARD ALUM UNGAR CLAIMS TITLE – Recent Harvard standout Benji Ungar won the Summer Nationals D-1 (overall) men's epee title, a few months after reaching the NCAA semifinals (where he lost to current Princeton fencer Graham Wicas) ... Ungar – the 2006 NCAA champion – was a fifth-year fencer at Harvard in 2009 and had been a leading member of Harvard's 2006 NCAA team championship squad ... the Bronx native entered Summer Nationals seeded 44th but surged to the #6 seed in round-2, thanks to a 4-1 opening record (+10 indicators) during his bouts in pool-8 ... Ungar's only pool-round loss came versus Princetone incoming freshman Jonathan Yergler (4-5), with noteworthy wins over Air Force rising senior All-American Peter French (5-3) and Notre Dame signee James Kaull (5-4), plus 5-1 victories over Travis Exum and Robert Reed ... Ungar went on to post direct-elimination wins over Dylan Bethel (15-9; round-of-32) and Garrett Carnahan (15-6), followed by a quarterfinal victory over recent St. John's All-American Benjamin Bratton (15-11) and a 15-12 semifinal against his former college teammate James Hawrot (a rising soph.) ... the championship bout featured two fencers who both had been seeded outside the top-36: Ungar (44th) and 17-year-old Michael Raynis (38th), who ironically will be a senior this fall at Harvard (no connection)-Westlake High School in southern California ... Ungar emerged with the title and now is listed 25th in the USFA national men's epee rankings (as of July 20).
James Hawrot (left)
• OTHER TOP-8 FINISHERS – One of Princeton's all-time greats, '04 U.S. Olympian Soren Thompson, joined Ungar, Raynis and Hawrot among the semifinalists at the '09 Summer Nationals (Thompson was the '01 NCAA champion, '02 runner-up and 5th-place finisher in '05) ... the 5th- thru 8th-place finishers were Bratton, another former St. John's standout Adam Rodney, Princeton signee Edward Kelley and the incoming ND freshman Kaull ... other fencers of note in the field-of-57 included (but are not limited to): 2009 Penn State grad. Jimmy Moody (9th), '09 UPenn grad. Ben Wieder (12th), AFA's French (14th), Princeton's Wicas (15th), former ND four-time All-American and '04 Olympian Jan Viviani (16th), Princeton rising sophomore Cooper Gegan (18th), '09 Columbia grad. Dwight Smith (25th) and Harvard '08 grad. Teddy Sherrill (29th) ... others of note who finished outside the top-40: Stanford rising soph. Kevin Mo, Princeton rising sr. Tommi Hurme, Penn rising jr. Jacob Wischnia, Ohio State soph.-to-be Eric Gurnowski and Haverford rising jr. Remy Olson.
James Kaull (left)
• TOP-8 NOTES – The youngster HAYNIS now is 17th in the USFA rankings, following his Summer Nationals performance that included going 6-0 (+19) in pool-2 to vault from the #38 seed to the top seed entering the DE (his pool wins included 5-1 vs. Smith and 5-2 vs. Mo) ... his run to the final then included wins over Ilya Lobanenkov (15-12), Jens Stephan (15-11), Kelly (15-10) and Thompson ... THOMPSON (#20 original seed; now 31st in USFA rankings) went 4-1/+19 in pool-5 (5-2 win over Wicas) and then was seeded 12th for the DE (15-14 vs. William Blumenreich, 14-12 vs. Viviani, quarterfinal win over Rodney, loss vs. Raynis) ... HAWROT (#21 seed; npw 15th in rankings) cruised through pool-1 (6-0/+13) to earn the #2 seed in the pools, where the Barrington, R.I., native beat Carlos Bruno (15-9), former Ivy League for Wieder (12-9) and Kaull (15-8) before dropping the 12-15 semifinal to Ungar ... BRATTON – now #2 in the USFA rankings (behind former Air Force standout Seth Kelsey) – entered the SNs as the top seed and then was #3 after the pools (5-0/+14), followed by DE bouts vs. Smith (15-6), French (15-14) and Ungar (11-15) ... RODNEY – a 2006 All-American while at SJU – was seeded 9th, went 4-1/+14 in the pools (5-1 vs. Hurme) and then was the #4 seed in the DE (where he lost to Thompson in the quarters, leading to his current USFA ranking of 10th) ... KELLY, one of the top young epeeists in the south-Texas region, was seeded 31st but jumped to 8th going 4-1/+9 in pool-6 (4-5 vs. Moody, 3-1 vs. Gegan, 1-0 vs. Gurnowski), followed by DE wins over Magnus Ferguson (15-8) and Kian Ameli (15-14; his DE loss came in the quarters, 10-15 vs. Raynis, with Kelley now holding a #18 USFA rankings) ... KAULL – a product of the CD Fencers Club in Silver Spring, Md. – impressively now is listed 9th in the USFA overall men's epee rankings, with his SN showing including a #8 initial seed, a 4-1/+6 record in pool-8 (4-5 vs. Ungar, 4-3 vs. French, 2-1 vs. Yergler), a #10 seed after the pools, DE wins over Peregrine Badger (7-5) and Moody (15-2), and the 8-15 quarterfinal vs. Hawrot.
Jimmy Moody (left)
• MORE BOUTING NOTES – A few months after placing 6th at the 2009 NCAAs, MOODY earned the #6 seed at Summer Nationals and went 4-1/+14 in pool-6 (4-5 vs. Geegan) to stay at #6 in the seeding, with a 15-8 DE win over Sherill and a narrow loss to Kaull (12-15) that left him just outside the top-8 (he now is 12th in the USFA rankings) ... WIEDER (#34 seed; now ranked 29th) was 4-2 in pool-3 and seeded 15th in the DE (15-12 vs. Alen Hedzic, 9-12 vs. Hawrot in round-of-16) ... FRENCH (#29 seed; now ranked 24th) was 3-2/+3 in pool-8 (3-5 vs. Ungar), followed by DE wins over Neslund (15-13) and Adam Watson (15-9), plus the narrow tight battle vs. Bratton (14-15) ... WICAS – a rising junior and two-time All-American at Princeton – was the #14 seed, #20 after pools and now is 11th in the USFA rankings (he was 3-2/+17 in pool-5, with DE wins over Daniel Rees/15-10 and Geegan/15-12 before dropping a defensive battle with Rodney, 7-8) ... VIVIANI (#30 seed; now ranked 44th) was 3-2/-1 in pool-7 and then #28 seed in the DE (15-11 vs. Adam Maczik, 15-11 vs. veteran Keith Lichten, 12-14 vs. Thompson) ... GEEGAN's top-20 finish included a 4-1 record/+19 in pool-6 (5-4 vs. Moody; #13 seed in DE), with a 12-15 loss vs. Wicas ... SMITH – an All-American and Olympic hopeful while at Columbia – headed into the SNs as the #2 seed, but he split his six bouts in pool-2 (including a loss vs. Raynis), followed by a 15-13 DE win over Phillip Hedges and 6-15 loss to Bratton (Smith now is ranked 6th in the nation, behind Kelsey, Bratton, Cody Mattern, Eric Hansen and Jon Normile) ... SHERILL (#18 seed; now ranked 21st) was 2-3 in pool-4 and #39 seed for the DE (15-12 vs. Corwin Duncan, 8-15 vs. Moody) ... MO (#17 seed; now ranked 26th) went 2-4 in pool-2 (2-5 vs. Smith, lost to Raynis) and was seed 43rd for the DE (lost 2-3 defensive battle vs. Yergler) ... HURME had been seeded 10th but had a rough showing in pool-9 (1-4/-6; now ranked 19th in nation) ... WISCHNIA was 2-3/-2 in pool-7 (4-5 loss to Viviani) and lost a tough DE bout vs. Ferguson (14-15) ... GURNOWSKI dropped all five of his bouts in pool-6 (1-5 vs. Moody, 3-5 vs. Gegan).
Oliver Valdes (left)
• U-19 RESULTS – The under-19 men's epee competition at the 2009 Summer Nationals featured several current or future college fencers among the top-8 finishers: Princeton signee Kelley (runner-up), Penn State rising sophomore Oliver Valdes (semifinalist) and Duke sophomore-to-be Jonathan Parker (7th) ... Oregon native Josh Silver defeated Kelley in the title bout (Silver, who turns 19 in 2009, trains at the Northwest Fencing Center) ... New Jersey 17-year-old Alen Hadzic was the other semifinalist, with the 5th-8th finishers included another Oregon fencer (Robert Greer), 17-year-old sensation Peregrine Badger, Parker and 14-year-old standout Alexander Eldeib ... OSU's Gurnowski (9th) finished one spot outside the top-8, in the large field of 128 ... Silver now is listed 12th in the USFA national ranking for U-19 men's epeeists, while Kelly is 5th, Hadzic 11th, Valdes 18th, Greer 25th, Badger 13th, Parker 17th amd Eldeib 20th ... Hadzic (Montclair HS) won the 2009 New Jersey high school state epee title and trains at The Fencers Club in New York City (as do Bratton, Rodney and Smith, among other elites) ... Valdes (Southlake) and Parker (Austin) both are Texas natives ... Eldeib (a Virginia native) won the U-16 boys epee title at the '09 Summer Nationals ... note that CF360 has seen unofficial info. on Greer's college choice but will wait for something more official before posting that affiliation on this site.
• WORLD JUNIORS REUNION – The men's epee participants at the '09 Summer Nationals included all four of the fencers (Mo, Duncan, Kaull and Adam Watson) who comprised the U.S. contingent at the 2009 Junior World Championships in Ireland (Badger was on the '09 U.S. "cadet"-level team).
PORTLAND N.A.C. (late-April) – This North American Cup event had a big men's epee field (140) and some big names, with Kelsey and Mattern finishing 1-2 while Italian Luigi Mazzone (in the U.S. on a research fellowship) reached the semifinals ... the 5-8 finishers were: Bratton, 18-year-old Isaac Erbele (a club teammate of Kaull's), 36-year-old Keith Lichten (a top fencer at M.I.T. in the early-90s) and 30-year-old Lukasz Paluszczak (current assistant coach at Yale) ... other top-40 finishers of note included: OSU '09 grad. and NCAA semifinalist Jason Pryor (9th), Kaull (14th), Kelly (15th), Air Force rising senior and '09 All-American Daniel Trapani (21st), Rodney (25th), Gegan (26th), Yergler (29th), St. John's All-American and '09 grad. Stanley Vaksman (33rd), French (35th) and OSU rising soph. Igor Tolkachev (39th).
RANKINGS & INTERNATIONAL RESULT NOTES – In addition to the current USFA rankings noted above, Pryor now is 7th in the USFA overall men's epee rankings while Lichten is 14th ... the current FIE national men's epee rankings include seven USA fencers in the top-130: Kelsey (6th), Mattern (37th), Hansen (59th), 39-year-old Travis Exum (75th), Bratton (95th), Lichten (104th) and Yergler (128th) ... the FIE world rankings for U-19 men's epeeists include American fencers Duncan (33rd), Adam Watson (45th), Mo (58th), Kaull (66th), Pearson Miller (73rd), Hadzic (73rd), Yergler (84th) ad Anthony Green (96th) among the top-100 ... Kelsey recently placed third at both the Jockey Club Argentino in Buenos Aires (late-June) and the Pan-American Championships in San Salvador (early-July), in addition to a 10th-place finish at the World Cup in Bogata (mid-June) ... Mattern was the runner-up at the Pan-Am Championships (behind Venezuela's Ruben Milardo) while Hall-of-Famer Jon Normile was 11th and Hansen was 12th (Normile, now 41, won the '88 NCAA title, while fencing for Columbia) ... Bratton turend in a top-10 finish at the Epee Internationale in Montreal (7th; late-May) and finished 28th at the Bogata World Cup ... Raynis posted a 15th-place finish at the event in Buenos Aires.
UPCOMING USFA EVENTS – The USFA N.A.C. schedule for 2009-10 includes a junior/u-19 event in Kansas City (Nov. 6-9) and a D1 event (open to qualifying fencers of all ages) in Pittsburgh (Dec. 4-6), with the rest of the events coming in 2010.