On Saturday 24th the Cleveland State Fencing team hosted it's sixth annual John Szent-Kiraly Memorial Open. This event is a tribute to the late head coach who led the Vikings to their greatest results in program history for the fencing team. This includes a 4th place NCAA finish as well as Cleveland State only national champion at the NCAA; Carlo Songini in men's epee.
During the event the fencing team saw Senior foil fencer Phelan Spence walk away with the gold medal in the open foil event. This continues his string of successes this season. Paul Duchow also showed positive results as this event taking second in the open epee event.
Throughout the event several alumni visited the tournament to catch up with the successes of the current team and to reconnect with other alumni. Several alumni competed in the event as well. Brooke Snyder former assistant coach competed in the open saber and epee, and Tom Nagy, former assistant coach to CSU and owner of On Target Fencing competed in the open foil.
"The highlight of the day for me was to see the alumni get together and catch up. At one point I looked over at one of the fencing strips and saw Tom Nagy fencing foil, while akumni Jim Fazekas refereed the bout. Gary Krall and George Szent-Kiraly were cheering and coaching Tom from the sidelines."
The Cleveland State Fencing team will be competing at Northwestern on February 1st in its hardest meet of the season.
