The Notre Dame football and basketball programs may be having their problems of late, but the Fighting Irish fencers remain among the best in the nation.

Both the men and women duellists from South Bend proved that yesterday at the IAB, as they turned back valiant efforts from both Harvard squads, handing the men a 16-11 loss and stabbing the Crimson women, 6-3.

But Harvard's women fencers had a much easier time with St. Mary's, Notre Dame's sister school, later in the afternoon. The Crimson cruised to a 7-2 victory on the strength of Gulia Ciechetti's three victories.

Captain Lori McLaughlin shone for Harvard in the loss to Notre Dame, but the Crimson senior was unable to overcome the performance of nationally ranked Irish fencer Molly Sullivan, who easily handled all three of her opponents.

"We were all kind of rusty today after the long break," said Cicchetti, "but the rest of the season looks very promising."

The men whose record dropped to 6-4 with the loss - also seemed to remain optomistic in the face of defeat, as they realized that they had fallen to one of the nations top squads.

"We played very well considering that we've only been back for three days," responded Co-Captain Jeff Levy. "Notre Dame is probably one of the top three teams in the country."

The Fighting Irish dominated both the sabre and epee competitions, but the surprise of the day came in the foil event. The Crimson got impressive performances from Levy and sophomore Brian Schaffield, both of whom won two out of three, to record a 5-4 foil victory in what Levy called "a big upset."

No Crimson fencer, however, was able to defeat the Irish's Charles Higgs Coulthard, who was last year's NCAA foil champion. The Notre Dame senior easily put down his three opponents.

Another bright spot for the Crimson was the performance of Do Kim. The sophomore transfer from Princeton went 24--in the sabre competition.

The fencers next take on the Princeton Tigers on February 2 in New Jersey.

Said Levy. "We could finish off without another dual meet loss, which would leave us at 11-4. That should give us some momentum going into the Eastern Regionals in March."