There may be no "I" in the word "team," but each member of the men's fencing team was competing for himself Saturday. Splitting squads between sites at Penn State and Ohio State, the Irish fencers took to the strip in individual competition.Notre Dame found the most success at State College in the Max Garrett Open. With a group that consisted of a majority of the starters, the Irish brought home two, third-place finishes in junior foilist Derek Snyder and freshman epeeist Aaron Adjemian.Adjemian headed a core group of freshman including fourth place sabre Matthew Stearns and quarterfinal finishers Frankie Bontempo at foil and Patrick Gettings at epee. Senior epeeist North Carey won his consolation bracket and classmate Brian Dosal took home the same title in sabre. In Ohio, Notre Dame brought home a third place finish with senior Michael Macauley at epee. Other notable finishes include quarterfinalists freshman Eamon Murphy, sophomore Craig Brede, junior John Espinosa and senior Brendan Prendergast.While none of the bouts counted for team rankings, the meets served to give the Notre Dame team some needed experience in the young season. After a successful trip to Northwestern last weekend, the team sought to get further conditioning at their respective sites. At Ohio State and Penn State, the young group found themselves matched up against some of the best collegiate talent they will face all year. Last year, Ohio State ruined Notre Dame's bid for a joint conference championship. Penn State were a close runner-up to Notre Dame for last year's national championship.
