By Pritish BehuriaThe Daily Northwestern
Tied 13-13 against No. 1 Penn State, Northwestern coach Laurie Schiller’s hopes of a first win in his 29-year-career against the Nittany Lions rested on sophomore Samantha Nemecek’s shoulders in the decisive bout.
Nemecek withstood the pressure to help the No. 6 Wildcats to a historical victory on home turf at this weekend’s NU duals.
“I’m thrilled with the performance,” Schiller said. “Upsetting Penn State is an exclamation point on the season, while knocking off Notre Dame was pretty good as well.”
What makes Nemecek’s performance even more impressive was that the preceding dual saw her do the exact same thing against No. 4 Notre Dame.
With the dual tied at 13-13, she outlasted Fighting Irish junior Melanie Bautista to seal the victory for the Cats.
“Sam performed well in the clutch this weekend,” Schiller said. “She was fantastic this weekend and she anchored the foil team really well.”
The Cats were in impressive form this weekend, beating three ranked teams on the way to blowing out their opposition 12-0.
The weekend saw the team’s record improve to 36-5 on the season, which is a record number of wins for the Cats.
“It’s a great jumping point for the conference championships,” Schiller said. “Beating Penn State and Notre Dame was good and hopefully we can do the same next weekend.”
There were a number of star performances this weekend for the Cats.
Senior Sophie Eustis pulled off a surprise victory in the sabre section by beating Notre Dame’s 2004 NCAA champion senior Valerie Providenza.
“I think Sophie did great,” senior Mai Vu said. “She was fencing smart, doing different things each point and was able to put it all together against Valerie and it made a big difference.”
Freshman Kayley French followed her team captain’s good form by overcoming a 2-4 deficit to beat Notre Dame’s 2005 Under-17 world champion freshman Kelley Hurley.
“Everyone did so well this weekend,” Schiller said. “Gina Annunziato was on fire and Jessica just lost one.”
The end of January saw the Cats finish the month with an unlucky 2-4 weekend at the NYU duals, with NU losing two duals by one touch.
Since then, the Cats have had an undefeated February and will go into the Midwest Fencing Conference Championship next weekend behind an 18-dual winning streak.
“There were some bouts in the NYU duals we could’ve won but didn’t,” Vu said. “All of us were on top of our game and ready for this weekend and I think that was the difference.”
And the difference showed in the large score margin: NU won eight of the 12 duals this weekend by more than 15 bouts.
“The team fenced just fantastic this weekend and they were excellent,” Schiller said. “There was no downside at all this weekend … except maybe the weather.”
Reach Pritish Behuria at [email protected].
