Contact: Jeff Sattora

CLEVELAND, Ohio- When building a team and program, performing up to and above your expectations is often a first step towards turning in a winning product. The Cleveland State men's and women's fencing teams both hit those expectations this past Saturday, starting off the 2012-13 season.

"The veteran fencers on the team all performed as expected," said Head Coach Andy Tulleners. Adding the less experienced fencers on the team really stepped up and performed well.

The Viking men dominated each of their five opponents to start the year strong at 5-0. Those five wins already are close to half of the team's total of 13 all last season.

Junior John Cuturic was one of the five Viking men to go a perfect 15-0 on the day, ending the weekend with one of the best starts of his career in foil.

"John adjusted his fencing with coaching and to his opponents throughout the day and had the best day of fencing in his collegiate career so far," said Tulleners on the junior.

Cuturic was joined in the perfect record category by Wes Miller and Tom Bienvenu in men's saber, with Phelan Spence also going perfect in foil and freshman Paul Duchow going 15-0 in epee in his first career start.

Salih Yasun and Levi Young also went 14-1 and 13-2 respectively for men's epee. With Zach Wetzig going 7-8 in foil and Mike McDonald going 6-7 in saber rounding out the men's squad. 

On the women's side, although the team went 0-5 in team scoring, Tulleners was happy with what they were able to do individually.

The women's foil team went 4-1 on the day with their only loss being against Oberlin. Maureen Forinash had a good day with an 11-4 record, with Sudeshna Chakraborty leading the women's team with a 12-3 record.

For women's saber, Christine Bocci showed great improvement in her first showing of the season, going 9-3 on the day.

The next event for CSU Fencing is January 12th at University of Detroit Mercy.