UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Heading into this weekend's competition, the Nittany Lion fencing teams look to defend their title as national champions while seeking the program's 14th national championship, and fourth in the last seven years.The championship is under way March 19-22 at Ohio State. The NCAA Men's and Women's Fencing Committee selected 144 competitors to participate in the 2015 National Collegiate Men's and Women's Fencing Championships.
Eleven Penn State fencers have been selected to compete in the championship, six fencers for the men's team and five for the women. The maximum from each school in the championship is twelve fencers. Two fencers from Penn State were chosen as institutional alternatives.
Nittany Lion competitors on the men's side include last year's NCAA men's saber champion, junior Kaito Streets (Redwood City, Calif.), senior David Gomez-Tanamachi (Mexico City, Mexico), junior Nobuo Bravo (San Francisco, Calif.), sophomores Conor Shepard (Colleyville, Texas) and Oskar Tang (Stockholm, Sweden) and freshman Andrew Mackiewicz (Westwood, Mass.).
The women's contingent includes senior Alina Antokhina (Moscow, Russia), junior Clarisse Luminet (Lyon, France), sophomores Teodora Kakhiani (Tbilisi, Georgia) and Jessie Radanovich (Fresno, Calif.), and freshman Karen Chang (Hong Kong) The alternates for the weekend are freshmen Khalil Thompson (Teaneck, N.J.) and Kathryn Charpin (Setauket, N.Y.).
Fencers will compete in a round-robin format of five-touch bouts. After the round robin, the top-four finishers within each weapon will fence in semifinal 15-touch bouts, with the winners fencing to determine first and second places, and the non-advancing fencers being awarded a tie for third place.
Results from the upcoming weekend's championship will be posted GoPSUsports.com as the competition takes place. Fans are encouraged to follow Penn State Fencing via Twitter www.twitter.com/pennstateFEN and on Penn State Fencing's Facebook page at www.facebook.com/pennstatefencing.