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ND Sports Hurley Sisters Carry U.S. To Only Fencing Medal At Olympics By Dan Murphy Kelly Hurley saw the green light go on and then things got a little fuzzy. Hurley can’t watch her younger sister, Courtney, fence. She has had to find ways to look away since they battled together at Notre Dame. So, on arguably the biggest stage of their lives, in London’s massive ExCeL Center, Hurley found a small light away from the strip that would glow green if her sister scored a match-winning touch. She planted her eyes there and tried to keep her breakfast in her stomach. “It’s too much for me. I get so incredibly nervous that I have to look away,” she said. “All I was doing was staring at that little light and hoping it would come on.” Every other eye in the house was pointed at Courtney Hurley and Russia’s Anna Sivkova. The Olympic team epee event pits three fencers from opposing countries against each other in a rapid-fire round-robin faceoff. Hurley and Sivkova, the last pairing in London’s bronze medal match, brought their teams’ score to 30-30 at the end of regulation. Overtime would be sudden death, the first fencer to slip her sword through the other’s defense would win a medal for her team. Hurley, who started her senior year at Notre Dame this fall, was feeling aggressive. Twice during the closing minutes of regulation she erased a one-touch deficit shortly after falling behind, including once with just 18 seconds remaining. She decided to go on the offensive in overtime despite common fencing strategy dictating otherwise. Her plan worked. She landed her heavy sword on Sivkova’s arm 31 seconds into the extra bout and the green light lit up. Her reaction was much the same as her older sister’s. “I blacked out a little bit,” Hurley said when asked about the emotional celebration that followed. “It was just how much pressure was relieved, and my facial expression showed that it was a lot of pressure.” The Hurley sisters, along with teammates Maya Lawrence and Susie Scanlan, saved the U.S. from completely missing the fencing podium in London. The women’s team epee wasn’t just the only American group to medal this Olympics, they were the first team located in the Western hemisphere to medal in the women’s epee event since its inception in 1996. Knocking off the Russians, who entered the tournament as the second-ranked team in the world, was an Olympic-sized upset. The same trio of fencers had blown the U.S. team way in two previous meetings this year. Their story drew comparisons to the 1980 Olympic hockey team that knocked off the previously unbeatable team from Russia at Lake Placid. That wasn’t lost on the Hurleys. Before, during and after the match the fencers rallied themselves by repeating broadcaster Al Michaels’ famous closing remarks from the hockey game. “We were kind of down and upset after we lost to Korea [in the semifinals],” Kelley Hurley said. “We had to sit down and say we can’t be so upset. We’ve done so well so far. We should just stay positive, and then we thought well what if we beat Russia. Well what if we do beat Russia? ‘Do you believe in miracles?’ ” Kelley, a 2010 Irish graduate, didn’t know she would be fencing against Russia until the day of the match. She went to London as an alternate, but replaced Scanlan in the team’s lineup because she is the only of the four who had Olympic experience from her trip to Beijing. She had to shake some rust in her first bout of the day. Hurley lost 4-1 to Lyubov Shutova and put her team in an early hole. She regained focus on her next trip to the strip and put the U.S. back in contention with a 4-1 win over Sivkova. Both sisters agreed that bout was the turning point that gave their team the boost they needed to complete the upset. “It really made the difference, it would’ve been really tough if she didn’t get those touches back,” Courtney said. “She fenced amazingly, and I’m really happy that we did it together.” The Hurleys started fencing together when Kelley was 10 years old. Their parents met through fencing and coached their daughters through most of their career. The girls trained at the family fencing club and got in extra work on the strip their father built in the backyard of their San Antonio home. They didn’t become as close as they are now, though, until spending two years together in South Bend while leading the Irish fencing team. The Hurleys both have national championship titles to go along with their bronze medals — Kelly in 2008 and Courtney last winter. Kelley was a two-time All-American and Courtney will be going for her fourth All-America team next season. Notre Dame head coach Janusz Bednarski said the Hurleys did a great job of pushing one another in college. “They were supporting each other, but when it came to a bout between them they were trying to win,” he said. “There was no mercy on each side in most cases. They are both very talented, very intelligent and very competitive personalities.” Bednarski has coached a long line of Olympians at Notre Dame, including two-time gold medalist Mariel Zagunis and current Irish athletes Gerek Meinhardt and Lee Kiefer, all of whom were in London. Bednarski also coached the Polish national team to 11 medals at Olympic and world championship events from 1978-88. He said having fencers with the Hurleys’ success at Notre Dame is invaluable to the program as a whole. “It’s proof for all that the work pays back,” Bednarski said. “It’s a strong confirmation of the correlation between hard work and results. It’s too high of a level to be only talent and not a hard worker.” Courtney Hurley is back to work already. She left her bronze medal hanging at home in San Antonio. After a brief ovation from her teammates this August, Hurley started training to defend her national title. Kelley was back in the gym by the end of August as well. They are four years away, but both Hurleys are already looking forward to climbing the podium again at the next Olympic games in Rio de Janeiro. “We’re getting gold next time,” Courtney said. “No more bronze.” Irish Roundup Men’s Soccer (1-0) Notre Dame opened its regular season with a 1-0 shutout at home over Duke. Senior Ryan Finley, who transferred from Duke last season, scored the game’s lone goal in the 76th minute. Junior Andrew O’Malley won the Big East’s Defensive Player of the Week award by leading the Irish back end in his first career start. O’Malley and his fellow defenders allowed the Blue Devils just one shot on net in the game. The Irish return home on Sept. 7, when they will take on Oregon State and Akron in the Mike Berticelli Memorial Tournament. Women’s Soccer (2-1) Notre Dame bounced back from a season-opening loss with two wins during the last weekend of August by a combined score of 7-0. Six different players scored during the 2-0 win at Tulsa and the 5-0 victory against East Carolina at home. Junior midfielder Elizabeth Tucker scored both goals at Tulsa and earned a spot on the Big East’s weekly honor roll. Freshman Elyse Hight won the conference’s Goalkeeper of the Week award for notching back-to-back shutouts. Volleyball (1-2) Notre Dame started its regular season with a pair of losses to top-five teams bookending its first win. The Irish fell to No. 1 UCLA 3-1 and No. 4 Nebraska 3-0 during the last weekend of August. In between they swept St. Louis at their round-robin tournament in Lincoln, Neb. Freshman Taylor Morey made her collegiate debut with 29 digs against the Bruins, which won her Big East Freshman of the Week honors. Women’s Basketball Irish senior Skylar Diggins won her fifth international gold medal while playing for Team USA in late August at the first FIBA 3-on-3 World Championships in Athens, Greece. Diggins and her three teammates erased a five-point deficit in the finals to beat an undefeated France team 17-16. They also won a close 19-18 game against Australia in the semifinals. Diggins, who won a silver medal in the individual skills competition in Athens, is now 28-1 while wearing the red, white and blue. One of her newest understudies, freshman guard Michaela Mabrey, also won gold this summer at the FIBA U-18 Americas Championship. — Dan Murphy