Led by Captain Steve Kaufer's first-place finish in the epee, the Harvard men's fencing team earned a fourth-place finish at the Eastern Championships at MIT this weekend.

Kaufer, who finished 13-2 in the Ivies and 20-3 over-all, became the first Harvard fencer in over 50 years to claim one of the three individual weapons titles at the Easterns. The Crimson epee squad, made up of Kaufer and sophomores Giancarlo Cicchetti and Thor Wilbanks, tied Yale for first in the epee division.

Kaufer also qualified to advance for his second straight year to the NCAAs at Princeton next week. He will be joined there by senior Michael Merner, who speared third place in the foil division. As a team the Crimson placed fourth in the foil competition.

In the saber division, the Crimson's top saberist, freshman Kevin McCarthy, made a strong showing and may have qualified to go to Princeton. And as a squad, the saberists placed well, although not as highly as their foil and epee teamates.

For the season the fencers finished 11-3, 2-3 in the Ivies.

"We were initially concerned about the saber team," Kaufer commented. "We graduated our top five saberists, but the two freshman filled in very well.

"We lost two Ivy meets by 14-13 scores. It was crushing, to say the least, and we would have finished second [in the Ivies] if we had won those."

While the one-point losses to the eventual second and third place finishers. Penn and Princeton, deprived the fencers of all of the success that they expected from the season, the future looks fairly positive.

Two sophomores, Cicchetti and Jeff Levy, were elected co-captains for next year. With one promising epeeist already committed to Harvard and another year of experience for the still young saber squad, next year should bring more success to the tencing team, despite the loss of Merner and Kaufer.