NCAA Announces the 144 Student-Athletes — 24 Per Weapon — Invited to 2023 NCAA Fencing Championships

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — The maddest moments of March don’t involve basketball hoops or 68-team brackets. For fans of college fencing, March is all about the 2023 NCAA Fencing Championships. From March 23-26, inside the arena that’s home to Duke Basketball, 144 fencers representing 28 different universities will compete for individual and team glory. 

The format for this tournament is madness indeed: In each weapon, every student-athlete fences every student-athlete in a series of five-touch bouts. That’s 24 fencers in 23 bouts apiece over two grueling days. Consider it the largest pool round you’ve ever seen.

After these five-touch bouts are completed, the top four finishers in each weapon will advance to a four-person mini-bracket. Each semifinal is a 15-touch bout with the winners advancing and the runners-up (not fair to call them “losers” when they’ve made it that far) each receiving bronze medals. Next, the finalists face off in another 15-touch bout to determine the national champion. These semifinal and final bouts will be broadcast live on ESPN+.

With that table set, let’s see who’s invited to the party. Today, the NCAA announced the 144 student-athletes — 24 per weapon — who will participate in the 2023 NCAA Fencing Championships, held on the campus of Duke University in Durham, N.C.

The selections were made using a combined formula that considers two factors:

1. 40% — Season Performance Index (SPI), which is a complex formula designed to fairly assess a fencer’s on-the-strip performance throughout the season

2. 60% — Placement at NCAA regional competition

USA Fencing CEO Phil Andrews will be in Durham to cheer on the student-athletes as well as meet with coaches, athletic directors and officials.

“I’ve heard fencers rave about the electric atmosphere of the NCAA Championships, and I’m excited to experience it for myself for the first time,” says Andrews, who joined USA Fencing in August. “And while I’m there, I’m eager to meet more members of the collegiate fencing community as we continue to expand our support for NCAA fencing.”

The field of 144 includes four national champions from 2022 who will return to defend their titles in 2023. That’s Kaylin Hsieh (Notre Dame) in women’s epee, Maia Weintraub (Princeton) in women’s foil, Elizabeth Tartakovsky (Harvard) in women’s saber and Ashton Daniel (Columbia) in men’s foil.

As for schools to keep your eyes on, that list starts with Columbia University, the University of Notre Dame and Princeton University. Each qualified the maximum of 12 fencers for the competition. 

The University of Pennsylvania had 11 fencers qualify, while Harvard University and The Ohio State University each qualified 10.

Those schools will be in the driver’s seat for the team national championship. In NCAA fencing, the team champion is determined by the total points earned by individual fencers from the same university in their respective events. Each event contributes a certain number of points toward the team's total score.

Notre Dame, winners of the 2021 and 2022 team titles, will look to become the first university to win three or more fencing team championships in a row since Penn State won six in a row from 1995 to 2000.

Columbia, meanwhile, has won three of the past seven titles and will want to battle their way back to the top of the podium for the first time since 2019.

And Harvard, last year’s runners-up, will want to thwart any chance of a repeat.

While medals and trophies get the headlines, all of these student-athletes have accomplished something remarkable just by reaching the NCAA Fencing Championships. They’re in for an experience they’ll hold with them forever.

“Competing for a national championship inside historic Cameron Indoor Stadium is a unique opportunity that we hope you will remember for years to come,” Duke Athletics Director Nina King writes in a letter to fencers. “Take time to soak in the moment — you’ve earned this!”

Here are the qualifiers:

• Sofia Yee-Wadsworth, Brown University
• Ariana Mangano, Columbia University-Barnard College
• Tierna Oxenreider, Columbia University-Barnard College
• Chloe Beittel, Duke University
• Emily Vermeule, Harvard University
• Faith Park, Harvard University
• Costanza Greggi, Long Island University
• Laura Fekete, Long Island University
• Dominika Pawlowska, New Jersey Institute of Technology
• Karen Wang, Northwestern University
• Kateryna Chorniy, Pennsylvania State University
• Hadley Husisian, Princeton University
• Jessica Lin, Princeton University
• Nicole Gavrilko, St. John's University (New York)
• Irene Yeu, Stanford University
• Montserrat Viveros, The Ohio State University
• Yeva Mazur, The Ohio State University
• Karen Bei, Tufts University
• Jocelyn Ratzlaff, U.S. Air Force Academy
• Renee Zuhars, University of California, San Diego
• Eszter Muhari, University of Notre Dame
• Kaylin Hsieh, University of Notre Dame
• Jessica Liang, University of Pennsylvania
• Shirley Guo, University of Pennsylvania

• Skyler Liverant, Columbia University-Barnard College
• Teddy Lombardo, Columbia University-Barnard College
• Allen Marakov, Duke University
• Ark Ma, Harvard University
• Jonas Hansen, Harvard University
• Mohamed Elsayed Saleh, Long Island University
• Ian Adler, New York University
• Ryan Griffiths, Pennsylvania State University
• Ryan Lee, Princeton University
• Tristan Szapary, Princeton University
• Paul Fortin, St. John's University (New York)
• Henry Lange, The Ohio State University
• Paul Veltrup, The Ohio State University
• Matthew Han, U.S. Air Force Academy
• Derek Rong, University of California, San Diego
• Vedran Markota, University of California, San Diego
• Eli Lippman, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
• Jonathan Hamilton-Meikle, University of Notre Dame
• Maruan Osman-Touson, University of Notre Dame
• Avery Townsend, University of Pennsylvania
• Isaac Herbst, University of Pennsylvania
• Rico Braun, University of the Incarnate Word
• Ahmed Elsayed, Wayne State University (Michigan)
• Theodore Vinnitchouk, Yale University