The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, April 19, 1994 - 17 'M' fencers grab titles despite club status By DARREN EVERSON .DAILY SPORTS WRITER It's hard to remember when the members of the athletic teams were just classmates. The ones here are, I suppose, but I don't recall being ex- cited about seeing the football coach in high school or a basketball player in junior high. Back then, they didn't seem like anything special; they were just like the rest of us. All that changes when you come to Michigan, though, where the ath- letes become as famous as rock stars. A team like the fencing club, how- ever, is a reminder of how sports teams were before coming to Michi- gan - a bunch of kids with some- thing in common: a love for being *part of a team. TheMichigan men's and women's fencing teams are clubs, which means they don't recruit high schoolers or offer scholarships. They have meet- ings and aclub president, which makes them more like the chess club, except they have really sharp swords. And though most of their oppo- nents are varsity teams, the fencing club members don't think they're at ? such a disadvantage. "As a varsity sport, we'd probably be recruiting people," team member Derek Hogland said, "and it would limit the opportunities for people that had never (fenced) before. "We're not really looking to try to push for varsity status. (The women's team's) trying to get varsity status ;:was a topic of discussion at our end- of-the-year meeting, but they were very much against it because they realize that their opportunities might not have been there if it were a varsity sport." One such female is freshman fencer Tamyra Rhodes. At the 1994 Midwest Fencing Championships, Rhodes took a silver medal - quite an achievement, considering she had never fenced before she joined the N club. "She managed to key on one of the main aspects of epee," club president Seth Baldwin said, "which is you need td keep good distance (from the oppo- nent) and counterattack. Her height, 5-feet-11, and thin build give her a natural starting point. It gives her a lot more reach than her opponents." Rhodes' event, the epee, is one of the three forms of fencing. The others are called foil and sabre. Though the object - touching your opponent with the blade - is the same in the three events, what separates them from each other is the size of the target area and how one scores. In sabre, for example, the target area is anything above the waist, and you can score using any part of the blade. This makes it a more aggressive style than foil and epee, where scoring can only be done by "touching the tip of the blade on the target area. "(In sabre) you see a lot of people charging at each other and swinging their swords," said Hogland. "It's sort of like a swashbuckling thing, I guess. "Epee is more of a defensive game because even though you can get a touch anywhere on your oppo- nent, if you come in wrong, they can touch anywhere on you." Most of the people that join the fencing club wouldn't know the dif- ference between sabre and foil, or even how to properly pronounce epee (ep-AY), because most of them haven't fenced before. This fact seems like a tough ob- stacle for a team to overcome, but that hasn't been the case for these fencers. "I think the fencing club is a very cohesive, self-perpetuating entity," Baldwin said. "(We) can take raw talent and mold it in just a few years enough so that the seniors can create good fencers to follow them." That strategy has been successful, as both the men's and women's teams' records improved dramatically this season. And though the men's squad is losing one of their top fencers, senior Jeff White, Hogland remains optimistic about next season. "We are looking forward to next year," Hogland said. "A lot of our Water polo continues six-year domination of Big Ten opponents By SCOTT BURTON DAILY SPORTS WRITER It was D-Day at the Big Ten Women's Water Polo Championship last weekend in Evanston after Michi- gan was done with the competition. "D" as in destruction. "D" as in domination. "D" as in 'da best. For the sixth consecutive year, the Wolverines won the conference cham- pionship, completing a perfect 10-0 Big Ten season and extending their winning streak to 58 games against conference opponents. "We weren't contested a whole lot this weekend," Michigan coach Scott Russell said. "I did expect that. We haven't had a lot of close games this year. We've got a lot of talented ath- letes on our team and some experi- ence, and that really showed this week- end." varsity program, and it shows," Russell said. "When we compete with other club teams in the Midwest, the experience level we have, the condi- tioning in our athletes and the skill level is superior." While the Spartans are only a second-year program, they provided Michigan with its "stiffest" compe- tition. But thanks to the goaltending of junior co-captain Justine Sarver, Michigan State never made a seri- ous threat on the scoreboard, allow- ing the Wolverines' to control the action. "It was a fun game to play, be- cause the first two games were kind of boring," Russell said. "But it was never really close. The athletes on our team dominated from the start. We scored the first four goals and we shut down all the offensive opportunities that they had." Freshman Tonya Malkina, senior co-captain Candice Russell, sopho- more Julie Chmielewski and Sarver were named to the All-Big Ten team for their efforts. Malkina tallied 19 goals in the three games, Russell added nine goals and ten assists while Chmielewski chipped in five goals and six assists. Appropriately enough, Michigan will next host the Midwest Collegiate Championships April 22-24, which determines who qualifies for the Women's Collegiate National Cham- pionship, May 13-15, also hosted by Michigan. The Wolverines expect to be the class ofthe MidwestCollegiate Cham- pionship, given that the teams are composed of the nine Big Ten teams along with Bowling Green and Ohio University. "The other teams, quite frankly, don't have the experience or the depth to beat us," Russell said. "We need to go out and play the type of game we are capable of playing and we shouldn't have any problems. We are the only ones who can beat us." It will be a different story if Michi- gan qualifies for nationals. For unlike in the Big Ten, there are a number of teams that can easily hand the Wol- verines a defeat. In the last Women's Water Polo national rankings, Michi- gan was ranked No. 9. "I believe right now that we are one of the top-five teams in the na- tion," Russell said. "There really isn't a lot of difference between a No. 1 and a No. 5. The biggest difference is that there are a lot of programs out there that are varsity - they give scholarships, they get professional coaches and prime pool time." ro SOM* Instead of sending your unwanted items to a landfill, please donate CARBBAGC E p: E... them to local agencies that N help others in the community. S TD " 'IW . Nk now- i MOVm T A OEm1 L 20 -30,1994 Look for collection boxes for these items in your residence hail. Clothing Clothing must be clean and undam- aged. Donations will benefit Purple Heart Services Foundation and The Salvation Army. Food & Toiletries Packages must be un- opened and un-used. Dona- tions will benefit Huron Harvest Food Bank, Shelter Association of Washtenaw and Wildlife Rehabilitators. Loftwood & Carpet t PCcis Bring bulky items outside your residence hall to the "Take It or Leave It" area for your location. Remove nails from Ioftwood and pile neatly. Roll up carpets neatly, and tape A closed. Furni- Returnable Cans ' .. M..r k _m____-- A Household Items ( '..JN USLLJDeIIIULy anUWEE'