WEEKEND RESULTS
SEASON STATISTICS

CLICK HERE for more on the 2012 Fencing Alumni Meet on Feb. 12 to honor Detroit's 1972 Fencing National Championship Team
 
EVANSTON, Ill. -- The Titan fencers were in Illinois this past weekend competing in the Northwestern Duals on Sunday. Detroit posted dual-wins over Cal Tech as the men won 16-11 and the women edged out a 14-13 score.
 
For the rest of the day, the young team, with just two upperclassmen, had a difficult time facing experienced teams such as Princeton, Stanford, Duke, Temple and UC San Diego.
 
The men's side saw the California Institute of Technology (Cal Tech) match come first as both the men's foil and epee teams came out with positive scores. Foil captured a 7-2 win while epee went 6-3 en route to the 16-11 defeat.
 
The day became more difficult after that with match-ups against Duke, Princeton, Stanford, Lawrence, UC San Diego and North Carolina as the Titans were not able to manage a great amount of success against the strong programs.
 
Senior foilist Michael Purdy-Sachs (Port Huron, MI/Port Huron Northern & Ind. Studies) led the men on the day with nine wins over 12 losses and sophomore epeeist Yaroslav Ivanov (Louisville, KY/Ballard) had a 7-14 mark as the next best fencer.
 
On the women's side, Sarah Armitage (Canton, MI/Plymouth) scored six wins over 14 losses and freshman Katie Lang (Rochester Hills, MI/Divine Child) posted five wins with 16 defeats topping the female fencers.  Four Titans on the women's side had four wins including Ariel Skellett (Flint, MI/Powers Catholic) and Eva Berndt (Fremont, MI/Providence Christian), Shannon Canavan (Lake Orion, MI/Lake Orion) and Paige Zmudczynski (Fraser, MI/Dakota).
 
The Detroit women faced teams from Fairleigh Dickinson, Duke, Temple, North Carolina, Princeton, Cal Tech and UC San Diego. The lone Titan win came by one-point over Cal Tech as the women's sabre squad of Lang, Skellett and Berndt combined for a 7-2 win. Women's foil also posted a 6-3 win over Cal Tech to lead Detroit.
 
“We had a rough day against extremely talented opponents meaning wins were hard to come by,” said men's and women's fencing head coach Todd Dressell. “Ariel was held out of competition against Princeton to receive treatment on her shoulder. Ivanov overcame constant equipment programs in the last three or four rounds as weapons were repaired only to fail in the next round. Mike also struggled all day and we could not catch a break with the refs,” said Dressell.
 
“The women had a positive day for us as Sarah went 6-14 and freshman Katie Lang had a strong showing for us. Paige had the win of the competition for us upsetting Temple epeeist Kim Howell 4-3.”
 
On the season, Purdy-Sachs leads the men with 50 wins in 63 bouts and Skellett leads the women with 38 victories in 75 contests in 2012.
 
The next fencing event will come at Calihan Hall as the men's and women's fencing teams will host its annual Alumni Meet on Feb. 12 on the campus of the University of Detroit Mercy. A full day of activities are planned including a reception after the meet and then a special tribute to Detroit's 1972 NCAA Championship fencing team during the men's basketball game at 1:00 p.m. During the game, to be televised on Fox Sports Detroit, all Titan fencers will be recognized as well as the 1972 team.