NOTRE DAME, Ind. – Three UC San Diego scholar-athletes wrapped up action Friday at the NCAA National Collegiate Fencing Championships at the University of Notre Dame, competing in Women's Foil and Women's Sabre.

Senior Julia Hill finished 19th and junior Sarah Shen was 20th in Sabre, while true freshman Rafaella Gomes placed 23rd in Foil.

Hill earned seven total victories over two days of bouts, defeating teammate Shen, Duke's Anneke Zegers, Brown's Casey Chan, Cornell's Esther Bentolila, Penn State's Pauline Conscience, Yale's Stephanie Cao, and Penn's Amber White.

Shen, the 2022 West Region Sabre Champion, also earned seven victories. Her wins came against 2021 national champion Kara Linder from Notre Dame, Duke's Zegers and Alexandra Gorman, Maggie Shealy of Brandeis, Ohio State's Eleonore Perrier, Bentolila, and White, .

Harvard's Elizabeth Tartakovsky won the national title by defeating Notre Dame's Atara Greenbaum, 15-10, in the final.

Gomes won bouts against Notre Dame's Amita Berthier, Asherah Horsley of Cornell, and Helen Tan from Yale. Berthier went on to finish as the national runner-up.

Maia Weintraub from Princeton defeated Berthier, 15-9, to win the Foil championship.

In Women's Epee, Notre Dame's Kaylin Hsieh won the national title.

In addition to Gomes, Hill, and Shen, the Tritons have a pair of fencers in Men's Sabre, junior Shawn Kim and senior Justin Park.

Men's action is on tap for Saturday, March 26 and Sunday, March 27. Saturday, the first three Sabre rounds are slated for a 10:30 a.m. Pacific start. Rounds four and five are Sunday at 6 a.m. Pacific and the semifinals and finals will follow.

Park is a three-time qualifier (2020, 2021, 2022), while Hill (2021, 2022) and Kim (2020, 2022) are two-time qualifiers. For Gomes and Shen, 2022 is their first trip to the National Collegiate Championships.

Heading into men's competition, UC San Diego is 13th in the team standings. There are 23 teams competing at Notre Dame.

For more information about Nationals, including complete day-by-day results, please visit the Tournament Central page.

------

THE SCHEDULE
(all times Pacific)

Saturday, March 26
6:00am: Men's Epee Rounds 1-3 (Watch | Live Results | Live Scoring | Strip Assignments)
8:00am: Men's Foil Rounds 1-3 (Watch | Live Results | Live Scoring | Strip Assignments)
10:30am: Men's Sabre Rounds 1-3 (Watch | Live Results | Live Scoring | Strip Assignments)

Sunday, March 27
6:00am: Men's Epee Rounds 4-5 (Live Results | Live Scoring | Strip Assignments)
6:00am: Men's Foil, Rounds 4-5 (Live Results | Live Scoring | Strip Assignments)
6:00am: Men's Sabre Rounds 4-5 (Live Results | Live Scoring | Strip Assignments)
10:30am: Men's Semifinals and Championships (Watch | Live Results | Live Scoring | Strip Assignments)

------

NATIONALS SQUAD LIVE ON KUSI



------

HOW THEY GOT THERE

All five Tritons at Notre Dame qualified automatically for Nationals due to their placings at the NCAA West Regionals, which took place March 12 in San Antonio, Texas. Shawn Kim and Sarah Shen took first place in Sabre to pick up the title of West Region Sabre Champion.

• Rafaella Gomes - 2nd in Women's Foil
• Julia Hill - 2nd in Women's Sabre
• Sarah Shen - 1st in Women's Sabre (2022 West Region Sabre Champion)

• Shawn Kim - 1st in Men's Sabre (2022 West Region Sabre Champion)
• Justin Park - 2nd in Men's Sabre

For complete results of the NCAA West Regionals, click here.

------

MPSF CHAMPIONSHIPS

The inaugural Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) Championships took place March 13 in San Antonio, Texas. Shawn Kim became the first-ever MPSF Sabre Champion, while four other Tritons earned second-place finishes. For complete results of the MPSF Championships, click here.

------

ALL-MPSF TRITONS

Seven UC San Diego fencers were named to All-Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) teams following the conference championships.

First Team
Rafaella Gomes, Fr., Women's Foil
Shawn Kim, Jr., Men's Sabre (2022 West Region Sabre Champion, 2022 MPSF Sabre Champion)
Vedran Markota, Jr., Men's Epee
Justin Park, Sr., Men's Sabre
Sarah Shen, Jr., Women's Sabre (2022 West Region Sabre Champion)

Second Team
Julia Hill, Sr., Women's Sabre
Lawrence Song, So., Men's Foil

------

REWIND TO 2021 NATIONALS

For the first time ever, UC San Diego fielded a full team of 12 at the 2021 NCAA National Collegiate Championships, hosted by Penn State. The Triton roster included three freshmen, two sophomores, four juniors, and three seniors. UC San Diego was one of just three institutions with a full team as Notre Dame and Penn State also had 12 competitors.

UC San Diego placed a program-best seventh out of 19 teams. Over four days of action, the Tritons amassed 99 points to earn their historic finish. UC San Diego was just six points behind sixth-place North Carolina and seven points back of fifth-place St. John's.

Two Tritons on the men's side earned All-America accolades as sophomore Vedran Markota placed ninth in Men's Epee and junior Benjamin Hadler was 10th in Men's Foil. For the women, senior Emma Zmurk finished 11th in Women's Epee to garner All-America recognition.

------

THE WEAPONS

• Epee
Epee is the heaviest of the weapons. The target to score points is the entire body. It is the only weapon where points can be awarded to both sides if there is a double touch.

• Foil
Foil is the lightest of the three weapons and enacts a rule called right-of-way. Whoever is coming forward with the attack gets the point unless their opponent takes the right-of-way from them by parrying (deflecting/blocking) their blade. The target area for scoring points is the chest and the torso, marked by a light metallic vest called a lamé. 

• Sabre
Sabre also employs the right-of-way rule, but sabreurs and sabreuses slash instead of stab. Sabre touches happen so quickly that the referees won't even start the three-minute clock used to time the bout.

------

BE SOCIAL

The UC San Diego Fencing Team can be found on Facebook, Instagram (@ucsdfencing), and Twitter (@ucsdfencing). We just kicked off a new series called In the Classroom, where the Tritons talk about their majors and some of their favorite classes. Check it out!

------

About UC San Diego Athletics
After two decades as one of the most successful programs in NCAA Division II, the UC San Diego intercollegiate athletics program has begun a new era as a member of the Big West Conference in NCAA Division I. The 23-sport Tritons earned 30 team and nearly 150 individual national championships during its time in Divisions II and III and helped guide 1,400 scholar-athletes to All-America honors. A total of 83 Tritons have earned Academic All-America honors, while 38 have garnered prestigious NCAA Post Graduate Scholarships. UC San Diego scholar-athletes exemplify the academic ideals of one of the world's preeminent institutions, graduating at an average rate of 90 percent, the highest rate among public institutions in Division I or II. For more information on the Tritons, visit UCSDtritons.com or follow UC San Diego Athletics on social media @UCSDtritons.