As a Penn State alum, I follow the sport every year. They had a relatively down year record wise, but remained dangerous at the individual level, as Freshman Andre Mackiewicz showed with a championship in Saber, and Nobuo Bravo (great name!) with a runner-up in Foil. They're positioned well in Women's Saber after 3 rounds, with Freshman Karen Chang and Sophomore Theodora Kakhiani in 2nd and 3rd.
The team is very young but doing well after the retirement of legendary Emmanuil Kaidanov, who accumulated 12 national championships.
Bumping this, as Maestro Kaidanov died this past week. I wrote a brief thing on FB:
"RIP to the great Emik Kaidanov, and to all those who knew him better than me.
He was the longtime fencing coach at Penn St. (832-89 record over 31 years!), our archrivals, the top two programs every year from 1987-93 (Columbia 5 1sts/2 2nds to Penn St's 2 1sts and 3 2nds, roar lion roar). I did not know him well at all but something he said is maybe my proudest memory of my ten years in fencing (done at 21).
After we pulled out an intense 15-12 victory over Penn St. my senior year, Emik came over to me and the head Columbia coach (George Kolombatovich), and told us that he thought I was the MVP of the team. Keep in mind this was an insanely stacked team, filled with NCAA individual champs and future Olympians. I thought over the years maybe I heard him wrong or built it up in my head, but when we were on the subway to the induction for the Columbia Athletic Hall of Fame a few years ago (sorry), I told my wife that story and then when I saw George (RIP GK), it was one of the first things he said to me, unprompted.
RIP Emik, thank you for the generous words."