WALTHAM, Mass. – The Brandeis University fencing team will have two representatives at the 2022 NCAA National Collegiate Fencing Championships at the University of Notre Dame later this month. Junior Maggie Shealy of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, will represent the women in the sabre, while first-year Tony Escueta of Grand Prairie, Texas, will represent the men, also in the sabre. The NCAA Championships will be held March 24-27.
"I am so proud of these two student-athletes," said Brandeis head coach Jennie Salmon. "It was an incredibly deep and difficult path to qualifying for the NCAAs this year."
Shealy, who was selected to participate in the 2020 NCAA Championships before they were cancelled, was the Judges' top fencer this year. She went 81-19 in dual matches this year, posting a losing record in just four of the team's 35 dual matches this season. Shealy won gold at the New England Intercollegiate Fencing Association Fall Tournament and bronze at the NEIFC Championships in the spring. She was a seven-time University Athletic Association Fencer of the Week. At this past weekend's NCAA Northeast Regional championships, she placed 11th, one spot higher than her seed. Shealy just missed out on an automatic berth into the championships, but was selected as one of two at-large participants. She is one of only two Division III women to qualify for the NCAAs and the only one in the sabre.
Escueta was the Judges' top male fencer all year long, posting a 52-20 mark in 35 dual matches, posting only six losing records along the way. He was a three-time All-UAA Fencer of the Week honoree and took bronze at the NEIFC Fall Tournament in his first collegiate competition. Escueta placed 11th at the NCAA Northeast Fencing Regional championships, exactly to his seed. He earned one of nine automatic berths from the region, as three of the fencers in front of him were from schools that already had two representatives in the field. Escueta is one of four Division III qualifiers in the men's sabre field, the largest group of D3 representatives in any weapon.
Overall, Brandeis has two of the nine Division III competitors among the 144 selected to the NCAA Championships. NYU, with four men and one woman, leads the pack, while Johns Hopkins and MIT each had one man selected to the field. Shealy and Escueta will be the first Brandeis fencers to compete at the NCAA Championships since 2014. Shealy and junior Jessica Morales of Wilmington, Massachusetts, were selected in 2020 when the Championships were cancelled due to COVID-19. Morales missed the 2021-22 season due to injury.
The NCAA National Collegiate Championships will be held at Notre Dame for the first time since 2017. The women's competition will begin on Wednesday, March 24, and the men will get underway on Friday, March 26.
For more information on Brandeis University women's fencing, visit our web page at https://www.brandeisjudges.com/sports/wfencing.
For more information on Brandeis University men's fencing, visit our web page at https://www.brandeisjudges.com/sports/mfencing.
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