UC San Diego’s fencing team began its postseason with the NCAA West Regional Championship held at Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas. The event awarded six individual titles, and Sunny Sharma of UC San Diego secured the men’s epee championship for the second consecutive year.
With this victory, Sharma also received an automatic qualification for the National Collegiate Fencing Championships as regional champion.
The competition included teams from UC San Diego, Air Force, Incarnate Word, and Stanford. Each institution could enter up to four fencers per event. The format was pool play, where each participant faced every other competitor once.
UC San Diego performed strongly in men’s epee, with freshman Nurzhan Abzhanov finishing second to Sharma. Both athletes recorded 11-1 results in pool play. Sharma took first place after a 5-3 win over Abzhanov.
In men’s foil, freshman Adi Jain achieved a second-place finish with a 10-3 record. In men’s saber, Hananiah So placed seventh with a 5-6 mark.
On the women’s side, Katherine Kim—last year’s women’s foil champion—finished third this year with a 9-3 record. In women’s epee, Natalie Brooke Gebala also took third place by going 7-3 and finished one win behind the leader in a closely contested field.
Senior Zara Fearns was UC San Diego’s top performer in women’s saber by placing fourth with a 7-4 record; she finished behind three Stanford competitors.
Other notable finishes included Hania Hafeez (eighth), Bella Balogh (ninth), and Pia Huber (tenth) in women’s epee; Piper Randolph (sixth), Alexis Chew (seventh), and Neta Korol (tenth) in women’s foil; Erenei Ligh (sixth) and Siena Nguyen (tenth) in women’s saber; Dayus Gohel (fourth) and Ben Kim (sixth) in men’s epee; Jacob Levy (sixth), Scott Lao (tenth), and Lucas Zeng (eleventh) in men’s foil.
UC San Diego will compete next at Incarnate Word’s McDermott Convocation Center for the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Championship. The Tritons are defending champions on both the men’s and women’s sides. Competition begins tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. PT.
