Oct. 24, 2013
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - The Penn State men's and women's fencing teams will open up the 2013-14 season this weekend at the Temple Open in Philadelphia, Pa. The event will begin at 8 a.m. on both Saturday Oct. 26 and Sunday Oct. 27 and will take place in the Temple Student Pavilion. This weekend's Temple Open will serve as the Nittany Lions first round of competition this season with numerous freshmen on both the men's and women's side seeing their first collegiate competition.
Men's epee will be represented by freshmen Spencer Amann (Westminster,Co.) ,Conor Shepard (Colleyville,Texas), and Oskar Tang (Stockholm, Sweden). Men's foil competitors include freshmen Howie Chan (Hong Kong), Nicolas Graziano (Brooklyn, N.Y.). Junior Sean Moran (Beaverton, Oreg.), freshman David Akrami (Plano, Texas), and freshman David Filteau (Denver, Colo.) will compete in the men's saber.
The women's team will also be well represented with young fencers at this weekend's event. Freshmen Jessie Radanivich (Frisco, Ca.) and Sarah Waller (McKinney, Texas) will compete in women's epee. Freshmen Elana Dickman (Denville, N.J.), Desree Ortega-Furgeson (Wyoming, Mich.) and Daniella Ortiz (Bayside, N.Y.) will compete in women's foil. The women's saber will feature freshman Teodara Kakhiani (Tbilisi, Georgia), juniors Elizabeth Rapp (Portland, Ore.) and Alina Antokhina (Moscow, Russia), as well as sophomore Brianne Cavaliere (Wayne, N.J.).
Following the Temple Open, Interim Head Coach Wes Glon's Nittany Lions will take part in The Garret Penn State Open here at Penn State on Sunday, Nov. 10 at 8 a.m. Fans are encouraged to follow Penn State Fencing via twitter at www.twitter.com/pennstateFEN and on Penn State Fencing's facebook page at www.facebook.com/pennstatefencing.