SAN ANTONIO, Texas -- Brandeis University sophomore Adam Mandel (White Plains, N.Y./Masters School) became the first Judge since 2008 to earn All-America status in men's fencing with a 12th-place finish in the sabre competition at the 2013 NCAA Fencing championships in San Antonio, hosted by the University of Incarnate Word.
Mandel had a tremendous rally to earn his All-America status. He entered the day in 18th place in the men's sabre competition with a record of 6-9 on Day One of competition. Mandel then went 1-3 in his first round of four matches today - defeating Kevin Hassett of Notre Dame - to remain in 18th place with seven victories.
With his final four matches scheduled against three other fencers who also had seven wins and another just ahead of him with eight wins, the opportunity was there for Mandel to move up in the final standings. He did just that by sweeping Daniel Wolfson and Cameron Linday of Stanford and Eric Arzoian and Alexander Ryjik of Harvard. Mandel posted 5-3 wins over three of the four competitors with a 5-2 win over Lindsay to jump six spots in the standings and into the final All-America position, coming in 12th out of 24 competitors.
Mandel is Brandeis's first fencing All-American of any kind since Will Friedman '09 was 10th in the foil in 2008. He is the first Judge to earn men's sabre All-America honors since Olympic silver medalist Tim Morehouse '00 finished in fourth place in 2000.
Brandeis's other fencer at the NCAAs, junior foil fencer Julian Cardillo (Medford, Mass./St. Johns Prep) went 3-5 on the final day of competiton, to finish at 5-18 in 22nd place, moving up two positions from Day 1. Cardillo's victories today came against Leland Berstein of Pennsylvania (5-4), Quentin Schneider of Wayne State (5-2) and Stanford's Turner Caldwell (5-2).
At the conclusion of the men's competition, Brandeis sat in 15th place thanks to the 16 points scored by Mandel and Cardillo. They were two points behind NYU for the top Division III performance and three points against of MIT. Freshman Caroline Mattos (Providence, R.I./LaSalle Acad.) will represent the Brandeis women in the foil at NCAAs on Saturday and Sunday.