Nov. 5, 2007

SOUTH HADLEY, MA - The Sacred Heart men's fencing team kicked off their season with a strong performance at the BIG ONE fencing championship at Mount Holyoke College on Saturday.

Leading the way were Junior foil squad captain Dan Convery Zupan (Wellesley, MA), and freshmen Will Puglisi (Totwa, NJ) and Alex Tangkilisan (Calabasas, CA) who placed fifth seventh and eighth respectively. In addition, sophomore foilist Nick Bentley (East Lyme, CT) made the top sixteen, finishing 14th.

"This is an outstanding start for the foil squad this year", commented head coach Dr. Tom Vrabel. "SHU fencers have not medalled at this competition before, so to have 3 fencers achieve this honor is quite an achievement. Our foil team is poised to have a breakout year and establish themselves as one of the elite foil squads in New England".

In addition to the success of the foilists, senior team captain Matthew Laudicina (Selden, NY) placed 13th in the saber.

"Considering that we had no pioneer fencers reached the top 16 level at this competition in the past two years, this year's performance says a lot about how far we have come", said Vrabel. "This result puts us in great shape for the upcoming dual meet season".

The Pioneer men are next in action on Sunday, November 11th at Vassar.