The Columbia Lions are ranked at the top for men’s fencing in the first NCAA Coaches Poll of the 2014-2015 season. The Princeton Tigers have the top ranked women’s fencing program.

Penn State, Princeton, Notre Dame, and Harvard all rank in the top 5 for both their men’s and women’s fencing programs.

Full rankings provided by CollegeFencing360, which also provides a full press release:

CollegeFencing360 Coaches Poll #1 (Jan. 22, 2014)

MEN (first-place votes – Columbia 9, Penn State 1)

(school – voting points … final 2013 ranking)

1. Columbia – 148 voting points … (7)

2. Penn State – 140 … (1)

3. Princeton – 121 … (3)

4. Notre Dame – 114 … (2)

5. Harvard – 111 … (4)

6. Ohio State – 95… (6)

7. St. John’s – 82 … (5)

8. Pennsylvania – 78 … (8)

9. Brown – 64 … –

10. Stanford – 62 … (9)

Also Receiving Votes (panel submits top-15) – Duke 49 (10th in final 2013 poll), North Carolina 43, Yale 33, Sacred Heart 25, Air Force 9, UC San Diego 8, Brandeis 5, Stevens Tech 5, MIT 4, NYU 4.

Notes – this is the highest ranking ever by any Columbia fencing team (men or women), since college fencing coaches poll debuted in 2001; also believed to be first time any Brown team (men or women) has been in the top-10.

WOMEN (first-place votes – Princeton 8, Columbia 1, Harvard 1)

(school – voting points … final 2013 poll)

1. Princeton – 147 voting points … (2)

2. Harvard – 124 … (7)

3. Notre Dame – 120 … (1)

4. Penn State – 118 … (6)

5. Ohio State – 110 … (4)

6. Columbia – 106 … (3)

7. Northwestern – 89 … (8)

8. Pennsylvania – 81 … (t10)

9. Temple – 80 … (9)

10. St. John’s – 57 … (5)

Also Receiving Votes (panel submits top-15) – Brown 38, Cornell 37, Duke 29 (t-10th in final 2013 poll), Stanford 28, Yale 9, North Carolina 8, Air Force 6, Sacred Heart 4, Boston College 3, UC San Diego 3, Brandeis 2, Johns Hopkins 1.

Voting Panel – Michael Aufrichtig (Columbia), Alex Beguinet (Duke; men’s poll only), Janusz Bednarski (Notre Dame), Zoltan Dudas (Princeton), Sydney Fadner (Boston College), Nikki Franke (Temple; votes on women’s poll only), Wes Glon (Penn State), Josh Runyan (UC San Diego), Laurie Schiller (Northwestern), Bill Shipman (Brandeis) and Tom Vrabel (Sacred Heart).

Poll Notes: coach Beguinet votes only on the men’s poll and coach Franke votes only on the women’s poll; there are 10 voters for each poll – four from the Northeast region, three from the Mid-Atlantic/South, two from the Midwest and one from the West; the amount of voters per region (4-3-2-1) is in approximate ratio to the amount of schools in each region that sponsor varsity fencing – 18 in the Northeast, 13 in the Mid-Atlantic/South, 7 in the Midwest and 4 in the West … seven of these schools sponsor only a varsity women’s fencing team: CCNY, Cornell, Fairleigh Dickinson, Northwestern, Queens, Temple, Tufts and Wellesley.