UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – The Penn State men’s and women’s fencing teams are back in action for their second competition of the 2025-2026 season in the Elite Invitational at Ohio State from Saturday, November 8-9. The Elite Invitational marks the first time that the Nittany Lions will fence against Big Ten opponents this season. Competition will begin at 8 a.m. on both days.
Fencing epee on the men’s side is Mohamed Yasseen, Tingwei Xu, Sultan Hassan, Zachary Suico, Sebastian Bonomo and Vasil Ivakimov. Ivakimov had a strong start to his season after finishing in 15th place overall at the Nikki Franke Invitational at Temple.
The women’s epee team will have Allegra Cristofoletto, Sophia Abashidze, Yuna Tamura and Lena Gyenes. Tamura and Gyenes competed in their first collegiate competition at Temple, where they collected their first collegiate victories.
Men’s foil will see Dusan Zeljkovic, Julian Chin and Spencer Burke make their season debuts along with Alessio Fukuda and Matthew Gonzalez returning to the strip for another weekend of competition.
Fencing for the first time this season for women’s foil is Thea Fernandes, Eden De La Cruz, Emma Holmes and Clarisse Tan.
Neil Lilov will make his season debut for men’s saber, along with Carlos Fernando Chacon and Tyson Deck returning to action in Columbus. Deck is coming off his first collegiate competition at Temple, where he earned his first collegiate victories.
For the women's saber team, Amelia Baker and Mia Novick will make their season debuts while Eve Scott and Eunyu Kim will compete for the second time this season. At the Nikki Franke Invitational, Kim earned fifth place overall in bracket competition, the highest finish overall for Penn State that weekend.
Penn State is set to take on Ohio State, Denison, the Air Force and Harvard on Saturday and Cleveland State, Notre Dame, Northwestern, Wayne State and North Carolina on Sunday.
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Follow along with the Penn State Fencing team on our social media pages on Facebook (PennStateFen) and X/Instagram (@pennstatefen). Live updates during competitions regarding meet day information and other important notes will be posted on X.