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Zoltan Dudas completed his seventh season as head coach of the Princeton University men's and women's fencing teams in 2012-13, continuing a run of top-10 NCAA Championship finishes every year during his Princeton career with the program's first combined NCAA title in 2013.
Under Dudas, Princeton has taken the maximum 12 NCAA Championship qualifications in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013 and has come home with NCAA trophies the last three seasons, finishing fourth in 2011, second in 2012 and first in 2013, each time tying or surpassing what had been the program's best finish in the era of combined NCAA championships.
During his seven seasons, Dudas has led Princeton fencers to 40 All-America accolades out of 69 NCAA participants, most recently winning 10 of a possible 12 at the 2013 NCAA finals. Five Princeton fencers qualified for the four-man direct-elimination bouts at the 2012 NCAAs, with epeeist Jonathan Yergler winning Princeton's first NCAA individual title since 2001, and five did so again in 2013, with saberist Eliza Stone winning the first NCAA individual title for the Princeton women since 2000.
Princeton's women have won four straight Ivy League titles through the 2013 season, and the men's team captured the crown in 2010 and 2012. The women's team has an ongoing 25-match Ivy League win streak heading into the 2013-14 season.
Overall, Dudas has a 117-30 dual-meet record with the men's team and a 136-29 record with the women. Both programs have set wins records under Dudas, with the Princeton women's four winningest seasons all-time coming over the last four campaigns and the Princeton men's five winningest years all-time coming over the last five seasons.
Dudas, a native of Hungary, came to Princeton from Notre Dame, where he was an assistant for five years. Dudas helped guide an Irish fencing team that finished a combined fourth of 29 schools at the 2006 NCAA Championships in his final season after helping direct the men's and women's program to
combined team titles in 2003 and 2005. Focusing his tutelage on the foil
and epee competitors, the Irish had 29 All-America finishes and 34
NCAA Championships appearances in those disciplines. While at Notre Dame, he coached at the Escrime du Lac, a fencing club, where his fencers won three national titles.
A 1992 graduate of Juhasz Gyula College in Hungary, Dudas came to the United States in 2000 after serving as a physical education teacher at both grade school and high school levels for 10 years, first as a student teacher and then as full-time staff. As a physical education teacher at Szechenyi Istvan High School, the handball team he led won the National Handball Championship in 1999, topping more than 250 teams. He also coached fencing at the Szegedi Postas Sport Club from 1985-1999. Once in the U.S., Dudas was a fencing coach at the Saturn Fencing Center in Cleveland, Ohio, from 2000-01 before moving to the Notre Dame, Ind., area. Before becoming a full-time assistant at UND in 2002-03, he served as a consultant to the Fighting Irish program for the 2002 season while heading up the fencing program at the Indiana Fencing Academy in Mishawaka, Ind.
| Year |
Overall Record |
Ivy League Record |
NCAA Finish |
NCAA Participants,
All-Americas
|
| 2006-07 |
9-5 (M),
9-6 (W) |
3-2 (M, 3rd),
2-4 (W, 4th) |
10th
|
Seven NCAA Participants, One All-America |
| 2007-08 |
11-5 (M),
8-6 (W) |
2-3 (M, 4th),
2-4 (W, 4th) |
10th
|
Six NCAA Participants,
Three All-Americas |
| 2008-09 |
17-3 (M),
16-6 (W) |
3-2 (M, 3rd),
4-2 (W, 3rd) |
8th
|
Eight NCAA Participants,
Four All-Americas
|
| 2009-10 |
21-3 (M),
27-3 (W) |
5-0 (M, 1st),
6-0 (W, 1st) |
6th
|
12 NCAA Participants,
Six All-Americas |
| 2010-11 |
17-7 (M),
24-3 (W) |
2-3 (M, 4th),
6-0 (W, 1st) |
4th
|
12 NCAA Participants,
Seven All-Americas |
| 2011-12 |
23-2 (M),
23-3 (W) |
5-0 (M, 1st),
6-0 (W, 1st) |
2nd
|
12 NCAA Participants,
Nine All-Americas |
| Totals |
98-25 (M), 107-27 (W)
|
20-10 (M, 2 Ivy titles), 26-10 (W, 3 Ivy titles) |
|
47 NCAA Participants,
30 All-Americas |
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