MADISON, N.J. - On Sunday, the Haverford men's fencing team competed at the Mid-Atlantic Collegiate Fencing Association's 70th annual Championships, held at Drew University in NJ. The Fords placed 6th overall out of 15 teams at the MACFA; the tournament was won by Johns Hopkins, who also won the foil and sabre squad events. NJIT won the epee.

The Haverford foil squad of Michael Pyo, Jax Wittenberg, Henry Fedonchik, and Andrew Strayer led the team's win count, as they have done all season, placing fifth overall in a decent result for such a young squad. 

"A"-strip fencer Pyo picked up enough wins in the team event to qualify to the individual round, where he won his first DE to get into the round of 8; losing his next match to Kaveh Shafaie of Rutgers. Pyo claimed a finalist's position at seventh, earning second-team All-Conference honors.

For the epee squad, the man of the day was Daniel Carvalho, holding down the "A"-strip to the tune of an 8-6 record. Carvalho helped his squad to a seventh place finish, and qualified to the individual competition  In his first Direct Elimination bout, he knocked off NJIT's top epeeist, Robert Hondor, despite NJIT's dominance of the epee otherwise on the day.  In his second DE, Carvalho led for the first two periods but was overtaken in the third by the eventual bronze medalist, William Hu from JHU.

An inexperienced but motivated sabre squad impressed with an eighth place finish, led by the performance of "A"-strip fencer Neville Linden.  With seven total wins in the team event, he qualified to the individual round of 16. Putting a scare into his opponent before dropping 8-15, Linden placed 16th and proved that he is now "among the best, instead of the best of the rest."

The season is over for some but not all of the fencing team. Qualifiers and alternates to next Saturday's NCAA DI Regional Championships, held at Lafayette College, include epeeists Carvalho, Vivek Veluvali, and Edward Shin; and foilists Strayer, Fedonchik, Wittenberg, and Pyo. The group will tussle with fencers from programs such as Princeton, Penn State, and Duke, in a quest to make it to Nationals.