Feb. 1, 2008

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - The North Carolina Men and Women's Fencing teams travel to Evanston, Ill. for dual meet competition Saturday and Sunday at the Northwestern Duals.

Both teams will face Ohio State, Lawrence, UC-San Diego, Cal Tech, Notre Dame, Stanford, Northwestern, Cleveland State, Cal State-Fullerton, Detroit Mercy and Wayne State.

In addition, the women's team will face Fairleigh Dickinson and Johns Hopkins.

TarHeelBlue.com sat down with junior sabre fencer Bobby Ziechmann to discuss postseason preparation and the upcoming meet hosted by Duke.

THB.com: What are you and the team focusing on as you finish out the regular season?
Bobby Ziechmann:"Of course we're working on problems. Fencing is about fixing a lot of minor flaws. It's very nuance. Basically everybody's very focused, and everyone's trying to improve their game. We're a pretty cohesive team. We're a strong team, stronger than we have been in years, although we still have inconsistencies. We're trying to work to eliminate that tactically, physically and otherwise."

What did you learn from last week's competition that you will take with you into further competition, especially teams you will see again?
"We met [Johns] Hopkins at Penn State. We'll meet Hopkins again. In the history of our program we have a very high winning percentage against Hopkins. In fact we hadn't lost to them until last year, and we lost to them for the first time in 40 years. Earlier this year we beat them pretty soundly pretty early on in the meet. I think that's part of the reason we came into the first meet at Penn State, which was Hopkins, a little flat. This time we won't be sleeping on that."

You boast an 82 percent winning percentage. To what do you attribute your success?
"Experience, I came in with the highest rating you can have in fencing outside of national rankings, letters A through E. Despite having success I wasn't consistent. Personally I'm working on consistency the same way that the team is. The team has a lot of freshman who are high-rated, but they haven't performed in this setting yet. That's what we're all working on."

You qualified for NCAAs the past two years. What have you learned from that experience?
"Personally for me we're going to be going up against a lot of teams with some big names, internationally successful fencers and just see how many of them I can take down and keep a good winning percentage. I'm pretty happy with my winning percentage right now."

How are you preparing for postseason competition?
"NCAAs are interesting because all the people there, I mean I know most of them from national competition, and it's a very different environment, especially with the epitome of NCAA fencing of course being the championships. When you go into national tournaments you're looking for points to make some sort of team, but there's already a very established hierarchy. Especially because in USFA fencing there are 15-touch bouts to really determine your final placing, and in NCAA it's five touches. It's a shorter game, and there can more upsets. There's more energy, and there's a little bit less patience. Even though I know all of these people from national competitions, especially at NCAAs, and I know they all have World Cup experience, I just get excited about it because I know it's only five points instead of 15 and anybody can be brought down."

Your final regular season meet is hosted by Duke. What is that experience like?
"Any of the stereotypes we might as UNC students have about Duke, they do their best to represent them there. It's very elaborately done up and set up more than anywhere else, even more so than bigger programs or more successful national programs. It's just a Duke environment. Usually it's around the time of the first UNC-Duke basketball game, and we go in there knowing that. There's just kind of that energy, that animosity from the entire campus for us, so maybe that pumps us up a little bit."

TarHeelBlue.com also sat down with sophomore epee fencer Claire Brandow to discuss the Tar Heels' season and the upcoming meet hosted by Duke.

THB.com: What are the goals for the team as you head into competition?
Claire Brandow:"I think we're just really trying to keep our focus. We have a really intense weekend coming up, but it's following a less grueling weekend. We just have to make that switch from just a few matches to a whole bunch this weekend. We have to change our focus."

What are your goals for the postseason?
"What we really want to do is have as many people from the team and our squad qualify for regionals, which means that they have a certain winning percentage for the season. We are making sure we get the right bouts, the right people and making sure people qualify."

How have you seen the team improve this season?
"I think for our squad especially, we become a much more stronger-knit group of friends and a squad. It's really been helpful to have a support net behind us the whole time."

The team is traveling to Illinois this weekend. How do you deal with such long trips?
"It's such a long trip, and we're out of class for a day. I try to make sure all of my work is in order. I make sure to get plenty of sleep before the trip because it's inevitable that the sleep I'm getting on the bus is not going to be any good. It's about being in the right place mentally."

What are you looking forward to most at the meet hosted by Duke?
"It's really exciting because obviously of the rivalry. It's also such a fun meet because we don't have to come off a bus. We're driving 15 minutes away. I think we're a lot more refreshed, and it's just a really fun meet that we're all excited about."

Are there any teams you are looking forward to facing this weekend?
"I think there are a couple of matches we'll have this weekend where we really want to prove ourselves against strong teams like Temple who we meet a lot. We always like to do as well as we can against them, and I think we'd like to win against some of the stronger teams."

What did you see in last week's competition that you thought the team did well with?
"I think everyone just had a really good attitude throughout the day. We started with Temple, which is a hard match for us. It was good that we had a positive attitude throughout that meet and even into the next two meets that were a little bit easier, but we were consistently positive through the day, which helps so much."