The Golden Dome won’t be the only gold the No. 6 Wildcats see this weekend.

The glare of an Olympic gold medal also will shine in the Cats’ eyes when they go to South Bend, Ind., for the Notre Dame Duals. There they will face the top three teams in the country — and Notre Dame freshman sabreist Mariel Zagunis, who in Athens last summer became the first American fencing gold medalist in 100 years.

Although the Cats’ starting sabreists have fenced Zagunis in years past, this time it’s different.

“It’s a little intimidating (to fence) the best in the world,” Northwestern senior sabreist Lauren Van Gieson said.

Zagunis graduated from high school in 2003 but took a year off to concentrate on the Olympics. She said she enjoys fencing college opponents, but she’s had some trouble adjusting to college life.

“For over a year, my whole focus was just on fencing, fencing and only fencing,” she said. “Now I have to kind of balance my time with fencing and school and social life.”

Zagunis, who went 11-1 in her first team event with the Irish last weekend, said she’s also having trouble living up to the pressure of being the gold medalist.

“You can’t win everything,” she said. “You can’t always be on all the time. Some people have off days.”

For Van Gieson, this presents a favorable situation.

“We don’t really have anything to lose,” she said. “If we lose, people aren’t going to be like, ‘What was wrong with you? Why did you lose?’ People are just going to be like, ‘Oh, good try.’ So she has a lot more to lose than we do.”

Zagunis said the difference in styles between college meets and individual tournaments — five-touch bouts in college events versus 15 in individual — also could keep her from waking up the echoes with the Irish.

“Anything can happen in a five-touch bout,” Zagunis said. “With 15 touches you have more time to make mistakes.”

And there’s that gold-medal-shaped target on her back, but NU coach Laurie Schiller said he’s not making any extra effort to knock off Zagunis this weekend.

“As far as we’re concerned, she’s just another fencer,” Schiller said.

Senior sabreist Lauren Dunn said while it’s possible to beat Zagunis, beating No. 2 Notre Dame as a team is more important.

“We’re going to concentrate on trying to take down her two teammates,” Dunn said. “We never want to lose to Notre Dame.”

The Irish join No. 1 Ohio State and No. 3 Penn State on NU’s Saturday schedule, which Van Gieson said is grabbing the majority of their attention away from the gold medalist.

“If anybody beats her, it’s absolutely amazing and wonderful,” Van Gieson said. “And if we lose, no big deal. We’ll just move on to the next bout.”

Reach Patrick Dorsey at [email protected].