NORTON, Mass. — Wheaton College (Mass.) men's fencer Phillip Nunnink (Kansas City, Mo.) was named the Northeast Fencing Conference Co-Fencer of the Year, it was announced by the league.

In addition, Nunnink was also named a First Team All-Star for the second straight year. 

Nunnink was deemed the NFC's top fencer after winning 14 of 15 foil bouts over five matches for a 93.33% winning mark to tie Boston College sophomore Alex Sennewald (Houston, Texas), who also won 93.33% of his bouts in epee competition. The pair were both chosen following the conference's one-day competition on February 28, where each league school competed against each other in five dual matches. 

Nunnink rolled over his opponents, winning 10 straight bouts, before finally falling in a 5-4 decision to Massachusetts Institute of Technology senior Henry Zhang (Scarsdale, N.Y.). Nunnink won all three of his bouts at foil against Boston College, and surrendered just two or fewer points in two of them. The Rockhurst High School graduate continued his brilliance, sweeping Vassar College, while dropping just six points combined. Nunnink marched on, defeating all three of his Brandeis University foes and did not give up more than three points in any of his contests. The Finance major took two of three bouts from MIT with 5-3 and 5-2 decisions against the Engineers. He capped the day by winning all three bouts against Sacred Heart University.  

For the season, Nunnink posted a 47-25 (65.2%) record in foil prior to the NCAA Northeast Regional competition. Much like his uncanny stretch of success during the Northeast Fencing Conference meet at Boston College, Nunnink registered 17 matches where he won at least two of three bouts, including nine 3-0 sweeps in the foil during the season. Nunnink posted a 17-10 overall mark at the Schiller Duels, hosted by Northwestern University on January 31-February 1 and swept through University of the Incarnate Word, University of Detroit Mercy and Cleveland State University. 

Nunnink has been outstanding at Wheaton, owning a 102-52 record (66.2%) over the past two seasons. 

He joined sophomores Oliver Smink (Rochester, N.Y.) and Grant Smith (Oakland, Calif.) and first years Jun-Ho Chen (Middletown, N.Y.), Charles Pedersen (Shoreham, N.Y.) and Solomon Taylor Evanston, Ill.) at the NCAA Northeast Regional Championship on March 8 in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.