From Saturday, October 25–26, the Penn State men’s and women’s fencing teams will begin their season away from home at Temple University in Philadelphia for the Nikki Franke Invitational. Individual competition will be part of the season-opening tournament; the women’s team will compete on Saturday and the men’s team on Sunday.
Epee fencer Sophia Abashidze will compete on Saturday’s opening day.
Yuna Tamura and Lena Gyenes, both freshmen, will be competing for the women’s epee team for the first time in college fencing.
For the women’s saber team, Mia Novick, Eve Scott and Eunyu Kim will make their season debuts.
Seniors Sultan Hassan and Vasil Ivakimov return to the strip on Sunday to fence epee for the men’s team.
Carlos Fernando Chacon will fence saber for the men’s team along with Tyson Deck, making his collegiate debut.
The men’s foil team, under new assistant coach Simone Mazzoni, is sending juniors Alessio Fukuda and Matthew Gonzalez to Philadelphia.
Penn State will compete at the Nikki Franke Invitational against Temple University, Boston College, Sacred Heart, NJIT, Bryn Mawr, Drexel University, UPenn, Stevens Institute, UNC, Duke, Wagner, Johns Hopkins, Drew University, MIT, University of Florida, Haverford and NYU.