BELFAST – Columbia University sophomore Nicole Ross – a two-time All-American who placed third at the 2008 NCAAs (5th in '09) – paced the United States women's foil team to an impressive gold-medal finish today at the Junior World Championships. Ross (New York, N.Y.) went 18-5 over her final two rounds, helping the U.S. overcome an early 11-16 deficit and go on to defeat Italy in the gold-medal match (45-40). Elite high-school-aged fencers Nzigha Prescod and Lee Kiefer joined Ross in the championship effort.
Nicole Ross (left)
The title showdown yielded a battle between the world's top-ranked u-20 women's foil teams (Italy #1, U.S. #2), with Prescod ranked #2 individually while Italy's three feners occupy the 3-4-5 spots: Martina Batini, Alice Volpi and Valentina DeCostanzo (Ross currently is #23 and Kiefer 33rd). In Wednesday's individual competition, Volpi finished as the runner-up, Badini reached the semifinals, Prescod was 9th, Ross 9th, DeCostanzo 12th and Kiefer 18th.
Kiefer won four of the five final points vs. Volpi in Saturday's round-4, cutting Italy's lead to 15-17. Prescod then maintained the two-point deficit (20-22), after splitting 10 touches against DeCostanzo in round-5. Ross – who was -2 earlier in the day vs. DeCostanzo – then thrust the U.S. into the lead, going 9-3 vs. Batini for a 29-25 team score.
DeCostanzo continued to fence well in round-7, despite yielding the first two touches to Kiefer (moving the U.S. lead to 31-25). It initially appeared that Kiefer won a third point as well, but the point instead was awarded to DeCostanzo – who ulimately won the final six points of the round for a 31-31 score.
Ross took to the strip in round-8 and dominated Volpi (9-2) before handing off a 40-34 cushion to Prescod. Batini scored the first two touches, but Prescod answered with four straight to leave the Americans one point away from the title (44-36). Things got a little tense when Batini rattled off four straight, but Prescod closed out the win with 1:09 left on the clock.
Ross led all fencers by going +11 in the gold-medal match (Kiefer was -2, Prescod -4), while DeCostanzo was +6 for the Italians.
Team USA earlier had defeated the Czech Republic (#18 seed) in the round-of-16 (45-13) and topped #7 Poland in the quarterfinals (45-22), followed by a 45-34 semifinal win over #3 Russia (Italy edged #5 France, 45-39, in the other semifinal).
In earlier action on Saturday, the 6th-seeded U.S. men's sabre team placed seventh, following a 37-45 loss to #3 South Korea. The U.S. squad features three college fencers: St. John's freshman Darryl Homer and the Notre Dame sophomore duo of Avery Zuck and Barron Nydam.
Sunday's schedule features team competition in men's epee and women's sabre, followed by the men's foil and women's epee events on Monday.