GARFIELD, N.J. - Sophomore Alex Gorloff added another outstanding accomplishment to his 2015-16 season, finishing second in an initial field of 47 sabre fencers at Sunday's MACFA Championships hosted by NJIT.

Fencers at the championships are initially broken into three divisions, with A-strip student-athletes from each of the 15 competing schools competing head-to-head against each other. An additional 15 B-strip fencers square off in the second division, while the remaining competitors face off on the C-strip. From that pool, the top nine from the A-strip, as well as the top five from the B-strip and the top two from the C-strip qualify for the individual finals.

Gorloff, who entered as the No. 1 seed on the A-strip, won 11 of his 14 bouts to easily reach the individual knockout stage as the second-best performer in his division. Junior Jake Burns also qualified after finishing fifth on the B-strip with a 9-5 record. Brent Staples, Lafayette's other competitor in the sabre, placed sixth out of 17 competitors with an 8-6 mark on the C-strip.

Burns' strong run came to an end with a defeat to Cornell's Ben Goldman in the Round of 16. Gorloff, though, advanced to the quarterfinals after topping Wesley McDowell from Stevens, and he then bested Goldman to lock up a spot in the semis.

Gorloff, who had already guaranteed the best finish in program history in the sabre, defeated No. 3 seed Patrick Rose from Johns Hopkins to advance into the finals against NJIT's Greg Puccio.

Puccio, the No. 1 seed after going 14-0 on the A-strip, edged out Gorloff by a 15-10 margin to take home the title. Lafayette's previous top result in the sabre was a fifth-place showing by current assistant coach Tom Gaunter '04 back in 2002, and Gorloff's runner-up performance was the best by a Leopard fencer in any weapon since Nat LeTowt '00 won three-consecutive titles in the foil from 1998-2000.

By virtue of his top-10 regular season finish, and his top-five placement at the championships, Gorloff qualified for First-Team All-MACFA accolades.

Lafayette finished fifth overall as a team in the sabre, which turned out to be the top showing of the afternoon for the Maroon and White. The Leopards were 11th in the epee, with Conrad Stoerker leading the way with an eighth-place finish on the C-strip. He was victorious in 7-of-14 bouts. Lafayette took 14th in the foil, led by Julia Sheng's ninth-place effort on the C-strip.

Next up for the Leopards are the NCAA Regionals, which will be held at Kirby Sports Center on Saturday, March 12. The top 36 fencers for each weapon in the region qualify, with the initial list of participants available later this week.