2023-24 PSU Fencing Thread

Evan Ceg

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Nov 1, 2021
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Our Fencing coaching situation is interesting. Matteo Zennaro, who was hired from Harvard in early August to be associate head coach, is now listed as Interim Head Coach and Adam Kaszubowski, who was heading into his second year as Interim Head Coach, has disappeared from the roster and the ICA staff directory completely. There are no assistant coaches currently listed for a team with 48 student-athletes on the combined M&W roster. Is Zennaro coaching all three weapons and the entire team by himself?

Penn State searched for a Fencing head coach last spring but ended up giving the Interim title to Kaszubowski for a second year. Kaszubowski's second Interim appointment was buried in a single sentence in the ICA press release announcing Zennaro's hiring.

Will Zennaro be awarded the HC job on a permanent basis in April or will Kraft and team conduct another national search once the current season is complete in late March?

Kaszubowski was first named Interim Head Coach in September 2022 when ICA announced HC Wes Glon had been suspended by ICA, which ended up being for the entire 2022-23 season. Glon, who had an impressive PSU coaching career, had been implicated in two controversies, the first around allegedly suppressing a report of sexual harassment against an assistant coach and the second involving a complaint of verbal and emotional abuse from a female student-athlete. ICA announced Glon's retirement last April. Glon was of retirement age, but was it Glon's choice?
 
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Tom McAndrew

BWI Staff
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Our Fencing coaching situation is interesting. Matteo Zennaro, who was hired from Harvard in early August to be associate head coach, is now listed as Interim Head Coach and Adam Kaszubowski, who was heading into his second year as Interim Head Coach, has disappeared from the roster and the ICA staff directory completely. There are no assistant coaches currently listed for a team with 48 student-athletes on the combined M&W roster. Is Zennaro coaching all three weapons and the entire team by himself?

 

Tom McAndrew

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Oct 27, 2021
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Penn State finished 5th at Nationals, where they combine the team standings. The top 10:

1. Harvard - 169
2. Notre Dame - 161
3. Columbia/Barnard - 149
4. Princeton - 131
5. Penn State - 130
6. Ohio State - 111
7. St. John's - 94
8. Univ. of Pennsylvania - 91
9. Yale - 89
10. Duke - 73

The top 2 teams scored well in all 3 disciplines in both women's and men's. Columbia was hurt by a low score in men's saber. Princeton was hurt by a low score in women's foil. And PSU was hurt by a low score in women's saber. PSU placed 2 contestants in each discipline/sex at Regionals, with women's saber being the exception where they only had 1 advance to Nationals.

PSU's men's team was ranked higher than the women's team during the season, so it's not a great surprise that PSU's 2 All-Americans were on the men's team.
 
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Evan Ceg

Member
Nov 1, 2021
90
141
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No news out of the AD's office on who will be the head fencing coach in '24-'25. I was expecting Matteo Zennaro to have his "interim" tag removed, and that might still happen, but, again, given that Kraft and team have known all year that a HC needed to be named, I'm a bit surprised it hasn't happened yet given that the season's been over for a month.
 

Tom McAndrew

BWI Staff
Staff member
Oct 27, 2021
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No news out of the AD's office on who will be the head fencing coach in '24-'25. I was expecting Matteo Zennaro to have his "interim" tag removed, and that might still happen, but, again, given that Kraft and team have known all year that a HC needed to be named, I'm a bit surprised it hasn't happened yet given that the season's been over for a month.

There is some rule on how long a job has to be posted by PSU before it can be filled. I really don't know if that's the issue here, but it's a possibility that Kraft and team are waiting for that before announcing the HC.
 
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