Women's Fencing | 3/8/2025 3:21:00 PM

Granville, Ohio- Denison University hosted the 2025 NCAA Midwest Regionals in Granville this weekend. The Midwest region is made up of eight teams—two Div III teams, Denison and Lawrence University, one Div II team, Wayne State University, and five Div I teams: No. 2 Notre Dame, No. 5 Ohio State, and No. 7 Northwestern, Cleveland State, and Detroit Mercy. Each team can qualify up to four fencers in each weapon which makes for a powerhouse field by the time you get to the top 12. In sabre, sophomore Corvus Endo led the way for the Big Red with a strong 8th place finish followed by junior Delaney Brown in 10th place. In the foil event, junior Velma Hall placed 9th, followed by sophomore Lal Ertün in 10th place. No epee fencers advanced to the top 12. 

"Our region is particularly difficult," Head Coach Peter Grandbois commented, "In that only five fencers qualify for nationals. When you have some of the strongest teams in the country in your region, with rosters packed with Olympians and US team members, competition for those five spots is pretty stiff. I told the fencers before we started that they'd had an incredible season but that we wanted to end strong, and they did with our best regional performance yet." 

Qualifying for NCAA Nationals is based 40% on the fencer's season results and 60% on how they do at Regionals. Though none of the Big Red fencers qualified through Regionals this year, many were in close contention for spots, and Endo will be one of the region's two nominees for a possible wildcard spot. The NCAA will announce all national qualifiers, including the wild card spots, on Tuesday, March 11. The NCAA Regionals marks the end of the 2024-25 season for the Big Red. 

For a full list of how each regional qualifier placed see below:

Sabre
8th Corvus Endo 
10th Delaney Brown
18th Natalie Isberg
19th Joyce Yu

Foil
9th Velma Hall
10th Lal Ertün
16th Bella Musto
DNC Elly Kennedy 

Epee
16th Maggie Zhu
17th Claire Anderson DNC Nicole Krumholz

*DNC—These fencers qualified for Regionals but did not compete.