Northwestern Opens 2018 at North American Cup in Virginia

Friday, January 5

Virginia Beach, Va.

All Day

Northwestern

North American Cup

Northwestern Opens 2018 at North American Cup in Virginia

1/4/2018 11:52:00 AM | Women's Fencing

EVANSTON, Ill. – Northwestern kicks off 2018 at the January North American Cup this weekend against the top fencers in the country in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

The Wildcats will compete in individual competitions throughout the weekend with Div. I foil and junior epee taking place on Friday, junior foil and junior sabre on Saturday and Div. I sabre on Sunday. The two-day Div. I epee event will start Sunday and finish on Monday.

In Div. I foil and sabre, the top 32 finishers earn national ranking points while the top 64 finishers do so in Div. I epee.

The foil and sabre events feature one round of pools before the direct elimination rounds while the epee event contains a preliminary pool and one direct elimination round before another set of pools and the main draw of direct elimination bouts.

In the senior foil competition on Friday, Sarah Filby and Lucia Procopio will take the strip for the Wildcats.

First-year Filby is coming off of a quarterfinalist appearance at a junior World Cup foil event in Cuba in December. In the October NAC in Anaheim, Calif., sophomore Banin led the 'Cats with a top-64 finish. Banbury will be competing in the first NAC of her collegiate career.

Sacha Bazzal, Alexis Browne, Ashley Gomerman, Jacqueline Hua, Isabella Min, Abby Tartell and Emine Yücel will fence in the Div. I sabre competition on Saturday at 7 a.m.

Browne posted a top-20 finish and earned ranking points at the December NAC in Portland, Ore, while also finishing in the top-64 at the October NAC. Senior Yücel led the sabre squad at the October NAC with a 39th place finish.

At noon on Sunday, the Div. I epee competition will get underway, featuring Marta Amador Molina, Pauline Hamilton, Ella Lombard, and Katie Van Riper from the Wildcats. Hamilton is ranked in the top-30 of the preliminary seeding and has a bye into the second stage of pools starting on Monday.

Hamilton posted a 12th place finish in the October NAC after advancing to the round of 16. Senior Van Riper also earned ranking points at the same event with a top-64 finish.

Hamilton will open her weekend by fencing as the only Wildcat in the junior epee competition on Friday. Banbury, Banin, Filby, Jia and Simontov will compete in the junior foil competition on Saturday while Browne, Gomerman, Hua, Min and Tartell will be in action the same day in the junior sabre competition.

First year Anya Harkness was slated to compete in the Div. I and junior epee competitions but will be unable to travel to the event because of the inclement weather in Virginia. Weather and travel complications could affect Wildcats competing across the weekend and especially on Friday.

The live results for the event can be found here. To keep up with the #B1GCats, follow @NUWFencing on Twitter and Northwestern Fencing on Facebook.

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