Philadelphia, Pa. – In its first action back on the strips, the Sacred Heart men's fencing team opened up the 2026 portion of its schedule with a pair of wins over NJIT (15-12) and Lafayette (17-10) at this past weekend's Dave Micahnik Invitational hosted by the University of Pennsylvania.

Both of the Pioneers wins came back-to-back to open up the day with the opening round win over NJIT and a round two win over Lafayette.

In the opening round, the Pioneers saw the bulk of their points come in foil where both Alex Ligos and Chaissen Costello finished 3-0 as the team combined for an 8-1 victory in the discipline. After NJIT took a 7-2 win in epee it came down to saber where Oliver Lindholm and Jonathan Morales each finished with a pair of wins before Zander Wolmart closed out the action with a 5-4 victory in the third bout to secure a 5-4 win in the discipline.

The Pioneers kept the momentum of the early victory into the second round pairing with Lafayette, again seeing the bulk of their points come in Foil where both David Belluomo and Jake Amend each finished a perfect 3-0. The two teams then split epee and saber by identical 5-4 scores.

Sacred Heart closed out the day with matches against Penn State, the host Penn and UC San Diego. The Pioneers will return to action this coming Sunday, January 25, when they travel to Wellesley, Mass. for the Northeast Fencing Conference Championships which will be hosted by Wellesley College.