Kovacs Wins Saber Title & Milewski Wins Epee Title In Philadelphia

Saturday, October 26

Philadelphia, Pa.

North Carolina

Nikki Franke Classic

Photo by: Jeffrey A. Camarati

Kovacs Wins Saber Title & Milewski Wins Epee Title In Philadelphia

October 27, 2024 | Fencing

Philadelphia— The Carolina fencing team produced a highly successful weekend at the Coach Nikki Franke Classic. The women's squad opened the weekend with two of the three possible individual event champions. The men's team featured a third-place finish in saber and multiple top ten finishes.

Saturday's Results:

Women's Epee
Nicole Milewski earned her first win of the young season in the Coach Nikki Franke Classic. The junior epeeist dispatched her opposition in the first round, 15-5. The round of 64 win pitted her against her fellow Tar Heel Mia Smotritsky.

Smotritsky advanced to face Milewski after upsetting a higher-seeded Blue Devil fencer by six points. Milewski kept advancing through tightly contested bouts but was able to handle the pressure against the freshman from the University of Pennsylvania in the finals to win 15-7.

Maria Capellua advanced out of the pool round tied with Tatiana Zafft as the highest-seeded Tar Heels, at ninth out of 88. Capeulla and Anna Temiryaev advanced to the round of 16. Zaft and Capeulla finished tied for 11th, while Temiryaev finished in 15th.

Women's Saber
Sophia Kovacs was the second Tar Heel of day one to notch a tournament win. Kovacs upset three top-ten-seeded fencers and four fencers overall during direct elimination. The championship was a classic college rivalry as Kovacs upset Duke University's higher-ranked saberist.

Iman Tucker also had a good showing, advancing to the round of 16 and finishing in eighth.

Women's Foil
A trio of fencers advanced out of the first round of the DEs. Molly Kettelle and Katie McGillion-Moore squared off in the first round, and McGillion-Moore won 15-12 in a close bout. Zhiyan Qian upset a fencer from Boston College in the first round. Lauren Yu had the best finish of the event group at 21st out of 80 fencers. McGillion-Moore's day ended in 25th. Qian finished in 30th. Kettelle rounded out the group in 45th.

Sunday's Results:

Men's Saber
John Lin's third-place finish highlighted the weekend's excellent men's performance. Lin's path to a third place finish featured a victory over the No. 2 seeded fencer from Duke University.

Strong showings also came from Carolina fencers Casper Mika and Elden Wood, who finished in seventh and eighth respectively out of 83. In the first round, Wood took down his Carolina teammate, Michael Zhang. Wood followed up the bout against Zhang with two upsets, including the No. 5 seeded fencer from Long Island University. But Wood lost to his other Carolina teammate Lin in the round of eight to end his day.

Mika's three victories in direct elimination came over three higher-ranked fencers.

Men's Epee
Aiden Click and Brayden Gyure's both claimed a top 11 finish in a field of 105 fencers. Click bested a fencer from Navy and Duke to finish in ninth. Gyure took down fencers from Penn State University and Stevens University to take eleventh.

Men's Foil
Nick Baumstein, Connor Williams, and Dylan Divito all notched top-ten finishes in a competition field of 100 fencers. Baumstein won three bouts in direct elimination to land in seventh. Williams advanced to the round of sixteen and nabbed ninth place. Divito defeated his Tar Heel teammate Kevin Maia Lima in a 15-14 bout before tying for tenth.

The Tar Heels fencers will take on Duke on Saturday, Nov. 2, in Durham.