Oct. 23, 2008

Heading into his 42nd season as coach of the North Carolina fencing program, Tar Heel coach Ron Miller spoke with TarHeelBlue.com's Lee Becker about his team and the upcoming season. Carolina opens the 2008-09 schedule on Sunday with a home meet, hosting the Mid-Atlantic Fencing Association (MACFA) Dual Meets at Fetzer Gym. Action begins at 9:30 a.m. and will run until approximately 5 p.m.

TarHeelBlue: Coach Miller, you're starting your 42nd season here at North Carolina. How does that feel? How do you get excited for every season?

UNC fencing coach Ron Miller: We work a lot of camps over the summer, and it's nice to get back in our own neighborhood with our kids. We definitely look forward to it. This is going to be a good year. We have a lot of people back, and then we have three significant new recruits. We had a smaller tryout than normal, in the context that we only had 30 people go through tryouts and we selected seven. So, our team is actually among the smallest that it's been in recent years at only 52 for combined men and women, but it will be a very good team. Even of the people that we selected from our tryouts, three of them have had previous experience. We only have four people on the team that have never fenced before.

THB: Speaking of the upcoming team and the season, what's your outlook so far?

RM: September and October is kind of our shakedown period. Usually, in September we don't even compete. We normally just have a practice environment and do a lot of conditioning and things of that nature. The team came back in great condition. I can't think of but maybe one other team that came back anywhere close to the same condition this team has, so we're in good shape. We were able to start into more complex actions and more true fencing-related actions sooner than normal. Usually this period is less fencing-specific and actually this year we jumped right in, so we're three weeks ahead.

The United States Fencing Association (USFA) is our parent organization, and the North Carolina division of that is back on track. Now every weekend, pretty much from now until the end of the season, if we don't have a collegiate event, we have a USFA event, so that means everyone can compete all the time. The difference is that's open competition so they're not representing the school. It's not on the regular schedule, it's up to the individual to do it. They're not going to improve if they don't compete.

THB: You're in a bit of a different athletic conference from the rest of the North Carolina teams. Tell us a little about that.

RM: The ACC has only three schools that fence at a varsity level. Every other school in the ACC has a club team and we compete against those club teams, but right now they're not at a varsity level. We're hoping that's going to change in the future. When we left the conference, there were four varsity programs and that's what's necessary for us to come back. Clemson, Virginia Tech, a couple other schools have very strong club programs that are rated very high nationally in the club nationals. There are actually about 70 teams in the club nationals, which is more than the varsity programs. They compete at an organized level, just not at a varsity level, but Carolina, Duke, and Boston College are the three varsity teams left in the ACC.

We joined an association called the MACFA, which is Mid-Atlantic Collegiate Fencing Association. They're mainly Mid-Atlantic, but it goes as far north as Vassar and as far south as Florida, so it's a large conference. It's divided into three regions or sections, so we compete within our region and then our region competes against the other two. We really have three main weekends where we have a local round-robin, which is what we have here in October, and then we go to Haverford and Hopkins to compete against the other groups. We do fence everyone in the conference at least once during the regular season. Some of the schools, the stronger schools like Drew, Hopkins and Haverford, we meet two or sometimes three times during the year, but only two can count for postseason. We see them on a regular basis and we've seen them for years, so it's not like we haven't already had an association with them. And the MACFA tournament is a good competition.

THB: And this is your second year in the MACFA?

RM: Yes, this is our second year. Last year, in the regular season we didn't lose. In the tournament, we lost by one bout. And this was because we weren't used to the way the tournament functioned, and Hopkins fenced an exceptional day, and one weapon, epee, we had a couple of individuals who didn't perform quite to their level. Sabre and foil dominated, they brought home two huge trophies because they won everything, but our epee squad was a little bit off that day, so we lost by one bout, actually by one touch.

THB: Talk to me about your returning seniors. It looks like you have a good group of upperclass student-athletes who are ready to go. Who are you really excited about on your team?

RM: Well, we're really excited about everyone. At this point, it's too early to tell who's starting for sure. We only have one returning starter in men's foil, which is Alex Grigorenko, and he's a senior. He's a transfer from Notre Dame, and he fenced two years for them. He really was our No. 1 last year and will probably be expected to be the same this year. He's one of our co-captains in that weapon. The other co-captain, Nate Seaman, is abroad this semester, but he is also a senior and he'll be back. He was a part-time starter last year. He started the beginning of the season, then someone else moved him out a little bit, but he's still expected to challenge for a starting position.

Kevin Nadeau is our freshman, and he won his first foil competition. He's a very strong fencer from Texas. Katie Williamson, who was one of our top two fencers in women's foil last year, comes from the same club, and they both have been great additions to our program. I've known their coach for years.

Also in men's foil, David Skwerer, is a junior. His brother is also on the team in epee. David's a junior, Kevin's a freshman, Alex is a senior, and Nate's a senior. So those are the top guys, although Justin Pruitt and Caleb Pardue are moving up very quickly, and then we have two new guys, both with a little bit of experience. JeeHo Kim started in June in Raleigh fencer's club, and Jay Goss started actually in our own club in NCFDP about five years ago when he was in middle school, but he hasn't fenced much since then.

Men's sabre is probably our strongest, deepest and most experienced weapon. Bobby Ziechmann has been to NCAA's three years in a row, is a senior and obviously the starter. His younger brother, Kevin, who will be a sophomore this year, also went to NCAA's last year as a freshman. Will Randolph is our captain and has been the sole captain of our squad for three years and also won the leadership award for the Carolina Leadership Academy. He and Bobby are co-captains this year since Will graduates in December. So Bobby's a senior, Will's a senior, and J.P. Powell is also a senior.

David Winer, who came in as a freshman last year, qualified for NCAA regionals and finished 13th out of 40 fencers and was the only one of our fencers who didn't make the finals, but he missed it by one touch. Our sabre squad is very deep at the top and also very deep all the way down.

Men's epee, we lost the number one to graduation, one of the few graduation losses for this year. But the other two guys that started, Eric Hsieh and Jarrett Rodrigues, return. And then we have a senior leader who is the captain of this squad, Ben Gellis. Ben has made remarkable progress over the last two years. He came in with some pretty good skills but not much in the way of physical conditioning. Over the last three years he's really come a long way. He had a great close of the season last year with some strong victories over Notre Dame, one of the top teams in the country. So we're looking forward to good things from Ben.

And then we have a freshman who is an A fencer from New York named Andy Valiunas and he should be very good. We have some other good kids on that weapon as well, so the men's strength and depth is outstanding, probably the best and most consistent we've had over all three weapons. Foil squad is much stronger the last several years. Epee is about the same, maybe starting the season not as experienced as usual, but sabre is definitely one of the top two or three sabre squads in the country.

On the women's side in foil, May-Lynne Chen-Contino and Katie Williamson are the obvious power because both of them had great seasons last year. May qualified for the second year in a row for the NCAA finals. The other senior is Jessica Wacker, one of the co-captains. She's been an off-and-on starter for all four years, so we expect good things for that squad, too. We have another young lady who is a Morehead Scholar from England, Marion Boulicault, and she was at one point ranked 14th in Great Britain. So that squad, although it's small, has pretty good power.

Women's sabre, just like the men's side, is outstanding. To an already good squad, we added the freshman who was the top fencer in the Midwest, Mary Saran, who is also a two-year All-American goalie in lacrosse. All three starters return; Jennifer Sawicki is a junior, Patti Sanders is a junior, and Jennifer Clark is a senior. And then Monica Kim, a local girl from Chapel Hill, is also a senior. All five of them could start for any team in the country. That weapon is loaded. J.J. Raynor, who is the Student Body President, is also in that weapon. Last year, she had a very good tournament at the beginning of the year and then got involved with the election and couldn't be around quite as much as she normally was.

Women's epee, we have our numbers one and three on a leave of absence. That weapon looks decimated at the top, but it's not. Melissa Litschi, who's a sophomore, and Christina Abruzzini, who's a junior, really have strong leadership and strong abilities. Helen Marino is an athlete who moved over for us. She was in sabre and we moved her over to epee last year. She is still a strong competitor in both. So we're not going to be quite as deep in epee starting out. On paper, that looks like our weakest weapon, but by the time we really get cranked up, it will be fine. So we really don't have any major weaknesses. We have to discover a strong third in foil, and probably sort out what's going on in epee, but the other weapons are all in a big fight to see who's going to start.

THB: Do you have captain for each weapon?

RM: We have a captain or co-captains, yes. In men's foil, Alex and Nate are co-captains. In men's sabre, Bobby and Will are co-captains. In men's epee, it's just Ben. In women's foil, it's May-Lynne and Jess. In women's sabre, it's Jen and Jen, and in women's epee right now it's Zini and Helen.

THB: Is there anything else you would like to add?

RM: This has been a frustrating year for scheduling. This is very hard to explain, but the calendar this year messes up the number of weekends in the months that we usually compete. Out of four months that we traditionally compete we lose at least one weekend in virtually every month. For instance, our exams start in early December this year. We have a meet with some of the strongest teams in the country this year with Penn State, Harvard, NYU, etc., which we host or go to every year but we can't go to this year because it's during our exams. We pick up three of those teams later in other places, but it's still disappointing. It's good to have that level of competition in the fall to find out where we really are, so that's disappointing.

On the other side of it, because of the Olympics, the NAC's, which are our national circuit events, are much stronger, but they conflict with the collegiate schedule this year. So we've also lost a couple of dates because of them. A lot of our athletes compete in those because they're working towards points for the next Olympics. We don't schedule over those weekends for that reason. Our schedule is probably going to be smaller than it has been in the last three years with fewer meets and more double-meets. The strength is still there, we'll still fence 15 of the top 20 teams nationally, but we usually fence 18 or 19 of the top 20 teams. All in all, I think it's going to be a great season. I'm looking forward to it, the kids are looking forward to it, the staff's looking forward to it.

The other thing that's a little bit different for us this year is that we have a complete staff for the first time in about six years. Josh Webb and I are the primary coaches. I'm the head coach, Josh is the primary assistant. Then we have Joe Pipkin, who was one of our athletes last year, coming back sort of as the head coach of our developmental program, so for our younger kids he's going to be primarily responsible for them. Jamaal Green is coming back as a volunteer and Matt Jednak as a volunteer - both were strong athletes for us in the past, and they'll be working also with that developmental group and also taking up some of the load for us in terms of conditioning and footwork in practice so Josh and I can focus on the higher-level people. And then we still have one athlete who was a four-time NCAA participant for us, Wes Newkirk, who also will be with us. We'll have six coaches, which is the NCAA limit, and that really will help us in terms of providing individual attention and focus.

THB: Thank you for meeting with us, Coach Miller, and good luck with the upcoming season.