Kennedy Lovelace Earns All-America Honors at NCAA Fencing Championships

Friday, March 23

State College, Pa.

All Day

Temple University

NCAA Championships

Photo by: Camille Simmons

Kennedy Lovelace Earns All-America Honors at NCAA Fencing Championships

3.23.18 | Women's Fencing

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - With a seventh-place finish among 24 competitors in women's foil, Temple sophomore Kennedy Lovelace earned All-America Second Team honors. Lovelace is the first All-American in foil since 2011 for the Owls, who have had three other All-Americans since that time in sabre and epee.

"It was a very strong competition for Kennedy, to say the least," said Temple head coach Dr. Nikki Franke. "This was some of the best fencing I've seen from her. She was just very consistent and very calm throughout the two days. Of the four fencers in the finals, she beat three of them in the round robin, so that shows you the level at which she was competing. I'm just very pleased with the maturity she showed in her first time at the NCAA's, and it's nice to have an All-American!"

Lovelace won 15 of her 23 bouts with 93 touches scored and just 65 received. She came into the championships with an at-large bid off a 12th-place finish at the NCAA Mid-Atlantic/South Regional and far exceeded that performance at the national meet. Of the top four foil fencers, the only one Lovelace did not beat in the round robin was eventual national champion Iman Blow from Columbia.

In sabre, Temple sophomores Malia Hee and Kerry Plunkett placed 13th and 22nd, respectively, with Hee finishing just one spot out of the top 12.

"It was a very strong field in sabre," said Franke. "Malia started strong and was able to do a good job today as well for her first time here, and just missed All-American by one spot. Kerry had a rough day yesterday but came back and won four of eight today.

"With our three fencers here all being sophomores, it says a lot for the future. They can build on this experience and increase their motivation to continue to work hard. It was a great experience for all three of them, and they did a really nice job supporting each other the whole way."

With 32 total points, Temple placed 11th overall in the women's team standings of the 24 teams represented. Notre Dame finished first, followed by host Penn State in second and Columbia in third.

"Every team above us had more people competing," said Franke. "We did the best we could do for the number of qualifiers that we had. All in all, it was an exciting couple of days and a great finish to our season."

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