Jan. 24, 2003

The University of North Carolina fencing team will be returning to Happy Valley this weekend to compete in the Penn State Dual Meet. Also joining the Tar Heels and the Nittany Lions will be the Hunter College Hawks (New York, New York), the Stanford University Cardinal and the Duke University Blue Devils. UNC competed in individual competition at Penn State in November. This event is a dual meet and will present weapon squads of three; Epee, Sabre and Foil. There will be three weapon squads per gender and a squad wins the overall bout by winning fourteen of the 27 bouts.

UNC assistant fencing coach Mike Nicholson states, "This weekend we will see some good competition. Four of the top ten teams in the nation will be there. The disadvantage is, given such strong opponents, our young fencers will not have an opportunity to participate as much as we would like."

The Tar Heels will present a formidable presence in the likes of Wes Newkirk sabre fencer. Matt McMurray and Steve Piantadosi will fence in the foil competition, while Josh Webb and Seth Axford will fence epee. Featured in the women's competition will be Jen Hunt and Fiki Mpofu fencing sabre and Ivona Puszkarczuk will fence foil.

"This event will offer a good indication as to how we will compete in the Nationals," states thirty-six year head UNC fencing coach Ron Miller. "We have been practicing hard. Last weeks event at Northwestern was a good confidence builder so I think it will be a good weekend for us. Our fencers are hungry. Last year at this same time we had a bad weekend. We did not fence well. The poor performance created a low point and the bad feelings carried on into the end of the season. This year we are in much better shape both physically and psychologically. We have no injuries so I think we will have good results this weekend and the rest of the season."

The meet is scheduled to begin at 9:00 a.m. in the Mary Beaver White Building.