Sports - Paragano, Pantel family duos
earn fencing honors

Wednesday, July 18, 2007 5:29 PM EDT

MENDHAM — Father-daughter combo, Vince and Laura Paragano, and father-son combo Glenn and Adam Pantel, all garnered medals at the U.S. summer national fencing championships held this past week at the Miami Beach Convention Center.

The four winners are members of Medeo fencing club in Bridgewater.

Adam Pantel, of Mendham, who recently completed his freshman year at Rutgers University, earned the bronze medal in the highest level men’s foil event, Division I, which includes the nation’s top-ranked men’s fencers, including Olympic and National Team members.

A former Division III National Champion, Pantel picked up a second bronze medal performance in the junior team event, in which his Medeo team, with teammates Alex Mills, Phil Choy, and Alex Risman, defeated California’s Golden Gate Fencing Center Team in a fence-off for third place.

Adam’s father, Glenn Pantel, an attorney who has been fencing for 40 years since he was on the Somerville High School team, also took a bronze, with a third place finish in the Veteran’s Men’s Foil (age 50-59) event, resulting in his moving up the national rankings to become the first alternate on the U.S. World Men’s Veteran’s Foil Team.

Laura Paragano, who will be a senior at Bernards High School and captain of its state championship varsity women’s fencing team, earned a bronze medal with a very strong performance in Division III Women’s Foil, in which some 93 fencers competed.

She was also named to the All-State First Team in New Jersey earlier this year.

Paragano’s  father, Vince, a Bernardsville businessman, fencing coach at Governor Livingston High School, and chair of the N.J. division of the United States Fencing Association, turned in a top-eight performance in Veteran’s Men’s Sabre, earning the sixth place medal.

Vince Paragano, who is a former varsity lightweight football player at Rutgers, started fencing seriously five years ago when his daughter began fencing. He was also awarded the Coach’s Gold Medal as a result of the Division III Women’s Sabre Championship finish by his Governor Livingston varsity team member, Beverly Yang, who is also a Medeo Club member.

Overall, New Jersey fencers had strong results at the Summer 2007 National Championships, earning 57 medals, about 10 percent of the total number of national medals conferred.

New Jersey’s Summer National medalists included nine individual national champions,  six silver medalists, 15 bronze medalists, and the bronze medal Junior Foil Team.

This year’s competition was held in 14 different categories over a 10 day period, attracting over 5,200 individual entrants and over 370 team entrants in all three weapons Foil, Epee, and Sabre) from virtually every state in the country.

Participation in the Summer National Championships is based on past competitive experience and achievement at USFA competitions or on qualification through sectional competitions held throughout the United States.

Laura and Vince Paragano of Bernardsville, Glenn and Adam Pantel of Mendham all won fencing medals at the U.S. Summer National Championships. From left are Glenn and Adam Pantel, Laura and Vince Paragano.