Northwestern University Athletics
Northwestern Wraps Season at Midwest Regionals
3/7/2003 12:00:00 AM | Women's Fencing
March 7, 2003
EVANSTON, Ill. - Fresh off its third-place finish at the Midwest Collegiate Conference Championships, Northwestern will be well represented at the Midwest Regionals on Saturday in Columbus, Ohio. NU will be joined by some of the region and nation's best as its fencers will try to qualify for the NCAA Championships.
"If you finish in the top four or five, you generally have a good chance at making the NCAAs," said NU head coach Laurie Schiller. "It is not a guarantee, but my experience tells that is a pretty safe number."
Among NU's top fencers are sophomores Lauren Dunn (Sacramento, Calif./Del Campo) and Julia F?ldi (Budapest, Hungary/Szent Istavan Gimnazium), who both made the NCAA Championships last season. Both fencers placed eighth at the 2002 NCAAs (Dunn in sabre and F?ldi in foil) en route to earning second-team All-America accolades. Dunn placed fifth at the 2002 Midwest Regionals, while F?ldi finished sixth.
Classmate Lauren Van Gieson (Wayne, N.J./Wayne Valley) also figures to be in the mix after placing second in sabre at last weekend's Midwest Collegiate Conference Championships. Van Gieson gets a shot at redemption after missing the last part of 2002 with a torn ACL.
Freshmen Emily Pasternak (Wilmette, Ill./New Trier), Sharon Sullivan (Fairport, N.Y./Fairport) and Christina Wang (Milpitas, Calif./Castilleja) should make a strong push toward the NCAA Championships. Pasternak (sabre) and Wang (foil) each placed fifth last weekend, while Sullivan (ep?e) finished seventh.
Teams can qualify a maximum of 12 competitors for the NCAA championships. A competitor's seeding heading into NCAA regional competition is worth 40 percent of its qualifying score. Where a competitor finishes at the NCAA is worth 60 percent of its qualifying score.
