SAN ANTONIO, Texas -- The Brandeis University fencing team finished up in 22nd place out of 25 Division I, II and III programs at the 2013 NCAA Fencing championships.
On the fourth and final day of action, rookie foil fencer Caroline Mattos (Providence, R.I./LaSalle Acad.) earned one win in her eight bouts, defeating top-10 finisher Ambika Singh of Princeton, 5-2. Mattos also suffered a narrow 5-4 loss at the hands of Notre Dame's Madison Zeiss, who went on to finish in third place.
Mattos, who suffered only 13 defeats during the regular dual-match season, matched that total on Day Three of the meet, when she went 2-13. Her two first-day wins came against Mai Shaito of the Ohio State University (5-3) and Fatima Largaespada of Temple University (5-4). Mattos also suffered 5-4 defeat at the hands of Lily McIlwee of Stanford.
Overall, Mattos finished with a 3-20 record at her first NCAA championship. She placed 23rd out of 24 foil fencers, finishing ahead of McIlwee based on touch differential.
The Judges' top performance at the meet came from sophomore Adam Mandel (White Plains, N.Y./Masters School), who became the first Judge since 2008 to earn All-America status in men's fencing with a 12th-place finish in the sabre competition. Mandel was one of two Division III fencers to earn All-America honors in 2013.
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 third 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 on the second day of competition came against Leland Berstein of Pennsylvania (5-4), Quentin Schneider of Wayne State (5-2) and Stanford's Turner Caldwell (5-2).
(Click here for a summary of Day One of competition)
With the 19 points scored by their three competitors, Brandeis finished in 22nd place out of the 25 schools that sent teams to the NCAA championships. The Judges matched Sacred Heard in total wins, but finished behind them based on tiebreakers. Brandeis was also third among four Division III programs, with MIT and NYU finishing in 17th and 18th places, tied with 23 points. Princeton took home the overall title, their first in program history, outscoring Notre Dame, 182-175.