Midwest Fencing Conference Championships Central Page

While most UDM students prepare to head home for spring break, the Titan men's and women's fencing squad are packing up and heading back to South Bend, IN, and the campus of Notre Dame for the 2010 Midwest Fencing Conference (MFC) Championships on Saturday and Sunday, March 6-7.

Action will begin on the strip both days beginning at 8:00 a.m. On Saturday, the individual weapons championships will be fenced and on Sunday the team championships for each weapon will be decided.

In their last competition, the Titans faced many of the teams they will see this weekend during the Notre Dame Duals in February. The women's sabre squad carried the day for Detroit then, as the squad of senior Ashlee McLemore (Detroit, MI/Renaissance), sophomore Samantha LaFrance (Macomb, MI/Dakota) and freshman Olivia Furnas (Macomb, MI/Dakota) posted wins over MFC foes Illinois, Cleveland State, Wisconsin, Indiana, Lawrence and Wayne State, suffering their only loss of the weekend to then second-ranked Notre Dame.

The men's sabre squad was right behind the women's squad in the same weapon, dropping only two matches at the event. Senior Doug Sollman (Sterling Hts., MI/Stevenson), senior Dan Bingham (St. Clair Shores, MI/Fraser) and junior Tom Lorenzo (Avon, OH/St. Ignatius) bested Chicago, Cleveland State, Illinois, Indiana, Lawrence and Wisconsin, and will look to repeat a similar feat this weekend.

In what head coach Todd Dressell believes was the strongest field at the Notre Dame Duals, the men's foil squad captured a trio of wins, as junior Brad Coon (Jenison, MI/Hudsonville), sophomore Michael Purdy-Sachs (Port Huron, MI/Home School) and freshman Jared Sivec (Macomb, MI/Dakota) posted wins over Chicago, Lawrence and Wisconsin.

Meanwhile, the shorthanded women's foil squad of senior Ashley Colbert (Washington, MI/Romeo) and sophomore Brittany Cook (Burton, MI/Owosso) had a fine day as well, picking up victories over Chicago, Cleveland State, Wisconsin and Lawrence.

At the 2009 MFC Championships, Dressell took home Coach of the Year honors after the men's team fenced it's way to an eighth-place overall finish in the 20-team field. Dressell's foil squad, made up of returning members Coon and Purdy-Sachs, as well as current UDM assistant coach Craig Budzynski, recorded a third-place finish in the team competition, with their only defeat coming in a semi-final bout to Notre Dame. Individually on the men's side, Purdy-Sachs recorded the Titans' best finish, taking 13th in the foil competition.

Detroit's women's fencing team finished 15th in the overall team standings a year ago, notching their best individual showings in the sabre competition, where McLemore fenced to a 13th-place finish and LaFrance placed 20th in only her second competition ever. McLemore and LaFrance also helped the Titans sabre squad to a seventh-place performance in the team competition as Detroit scored wins over Wisconsin and Michigan State, both by a score of 5-2.