NJIT men's fencer David Kong, a freshman from Rutherford, NJ has been selected as NJIT Male Athlete of the Week for his performance during the Virginia Beach North American Cup.
Kong and freshman Ryan Hrapsky were the two NJIT fencer to represent the Highlanders at the Virginia Beach North American Cup Saturday, January 18 and Sunday January 19.
Kong finished third out of 172 fencers in the U20 men's foil event and placed 46th out of 173 fencers in the Division I men's foil event.
Competing in the junior men's foil event, Kong recorded four victories and two defeats. He defeated Jacob Chae of New Jersey (5-0), Joshua Gaus of Maryland (5-4), Nathan Sinai of Pennsylvania (5-0) and William Feldman of Georgia. The two defeats for Kong came against Mitchel Shulman of California (5-3) and Jonathan Gill of New York (5-1). Kong was seeded 50th out of the pools.
In the direct elimination round, Kong defeated Connor Costa of New Jersey (15-11), Thomas Dudey (15-8), James Wittle (15-12), and No. 2 seed Darren Mei (15-11) to make the top 8. Kong then defeated Aiden Ahn (5-3) to make the top 4, finally falling to Geoffrey Tourette (15-13). Tourette went on to defeat James Sands (15-14) to win the event.
Based on the results from the North American Cup, Kong is now the 14th American U20 foil fencer in the nation.
