US Men's Epee Falls to Italy in Team Competition

[Craig]

US Men's Epee Falls to Italy, 45-35, in Team Competition at Summer World University Games

IZMIR, Turkey - The United States men's epee team was unable to solve a quicker Italy squad and fell to the Italians, 45-35, in the second round of the men's team epee competition at the Summer World University Games on Wednesday. The U.S. team finished the day ninth.

The U.S. opened with a three-man rotation of Ben Solomon (Chagrin Falls, Ohio/Princeton University), Soren Thompson (San Diego, Calif./Princeton University) and Christian Rivera (Bloomfield, N.J./Ohio State University) but found themselves in a 15-11 hole after the first three bouts. Solomon opened the second rotation of bouts by outscoring Giacomo Falcini 8-5 to cut the lead to 20-19. But Italy managed to pull away in the second and third bouts of the rotation and held a 30-23 lead entering the final rotation.

Kip Cox (San Diego, Calif./University of California-Berkeley), the fourth member of the U.S. squad, went into the line-up and led off the third rotation by outscoring Falcini 5-4 to cut the lead to six at 34-28, but Solomon and Thompson could not keep the momentum on the U.S. side and the Italians pulled away for the victory.

Francesco Martinelli gave the U.S. the most difficulty as he won his three bouts by a combined score of 16-7.

"I think we opened the match very well but we had some trouble with Martinelli, who is an excellent fencer," Thompson said. "They are a very, very good team. I thought it was great that we kept it close but Martinelli was able to open it up and from there it was going to be really hard for us to come back."

The loss ends competition for the men at this year's World University Games.

The U.S. women will open their team epee competition Thursday as the No. 13 seed and will face No. 4 Ukraine in the first round.

Full results available at: http://www.universiadeizmir.org/Resu...s/EN/FEEN.html .