Women's Fencing Coaching Records & Program Facts

Updated following 2024-25 season

First Match:  Dec. 2, 1988 (at Navy)  
                                    
All-Time Record:  556-182-1 (.753)

Head Coaching Register: (Ivy Record)

Ivy League Championships (13):  1999, 2000, 2001, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2022, 2023, 2024

National Intercollegiate Women's Fencing Association (NIWFA) Championship (2):  1993, 1994

Intercollegiate Fencing Association Championships (1):  2000

NCAA Championships (1): 2013
Quick Facts:

•  Women's fencing attained full varsity status in 1988.

•  In the program's fifth varsity season, the 1992-93 squad was responsible for a number of "firsts." The team had its first winning season and brought home Princeton's first NIWFA championship, making Michel Sebastiani the first coach to win the title at three institutions. (He previously won at Cornell and New York University.) In addition, Susan Ginn '95 won the first épée championship in NIWFA history — women previously had competed only in foil. The team went on to finish sixth at the NCAA Championships and helped Princeton (combined men and women) to an overall finish of fifth place, its best in 10 years.

•  Before 1993, Sandy Hill '86 was the team's last participant in the NCAA Championships, competing in the event in 1986 when it was held at Princeton. At the time, women's fencing was a club sport.

• Beginning in 1990, the NCAA Championship was a combined men's and women's event. In 1993, the men's epeé and foil squads combined with the women's foil team to lead Princeton to a fifth-place finish, its best in 10 years. In 1994, the men's epeé and sabre squads combined with the women's foil to take fourth place at the championships, while the men earned a individual national championship in epeé. Princeton won the combined title for the first time in 2013 and, through 2024, has finished in the top four in 10 of the last 12 NCAA Championships in which it has participated.

•  Eva Petschnigg '03 became the first NCAA individual national champion when she defeated top-seeded Monique de Bruin of Stanford 15-13 to win the women's foil individual crown in 2000. Eliza Stone '13 became the second Princetonian to win an NCAA title when she took the saber crown in 2013, and Anna Van Brummen '17 faced off with classmate Katharine Holmes '17 to win the 2017 NCAA épée title. Princeton added two more titles in 2018, with Kasia Nixon winning the épée crown and Maia Chamberlain winning the saber title, and its most recent in 2022 with Maia Weintraub '25.

• Princeton won the program's first Ivy title during the 1998-99 season.  The Tigers were co-champions with Columbia and Yale. Princeton repeated as Ivy League champion and won its first outright league crown after posting a perfect 5-0 league record in 1999-00. A decade later, Princeton was again undefeated, winning its fourth Ivy League title overall in 2010. In 2011, the Tigers again finished undefeated in the Ivy, winning their fifth title, before repeating the feat in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2017, 2022 and 2023.

•  In 1999 the women combined with the men to win the program's first IFA 5-weapon championship. Princeton won its first-ever IFA three-weapon title in 2000 and combined with the men to win the six-weapon title in the same year.

• Maya Lawrence '02, Jacqueline Leahy '06, Eliza Stone '13, Susannah Scanlan '14, Gracie Stone '16 and Katharine Holmes '17 are the program's six four-time All-Americans, with three in épée (Lawrence, Scanlan, Holmes), two in saber (E. Stone and G. Stone) and one in foil (Leahy).