March 14, 2007

EVANSTON, Ill. - The NCAA Men's and Women's Fencing Committee has announced the field of 144 competitors that will participate in the 2007 National Collegiate Men's and Women's Fencing Championships. Northwestern's fifth-ranked team will send five student-athletes to this year's competition. Drew University will host the championships at the William E. and Carol G. Simon Forum and Athletic Center, March 22-25, in Madison, New Jersey.

Senior Jessica Florendo (Forest Hills, N.Y./The Dwight School) and sophomore Sam Nemecek (Caledonia, Mich./Caledonia) will represent the Wildcats in foil. Freshmen sisters Kayley and Christa French (Southlake, Texas/Carroll) will compete at their first NCAA Championship, competing in epée. Senior Mai Vu (New York, N.Y./The Bronx Science) is NU's fifth representative. She will compete in sabre.

Northwestern is sending five NCAA qualifiers for the fourth-straight year.

The National Collegiate Men's and Women's Fencing Championships include individual events in each of the six weapons (women's foil, women's epee, women's sabre, men's foil, men's epee, men's sabre).

Fencers will compete in a round-robin of 24 fencers in five-touch bouts. After the round-robin, the top four fencers in each event will fence direct elimination 15-touch bouts for first, second, third and fourth place. Absolute ties for the seeding will be broken as follows: for positions one through three, by a coin toss; for position four, by a fence-off.

An institution's place finish in the championships will be based on points earned by each individual. A team will be awarded one point for each victory by its student-athletes for the duration of the championships.