SOUTH BEND, Ind. – Brandeis University junior sabre fencer Maggie Shealy (Chapel Hill, N.C./East Chapel Hill) had a fantastic first day of action at the 2022 NCAA National Collegiate Fencing Championships at the University of Notre Dame today. Shealy sits in fourth place after the first three of five rounds against the top collegiate fencers in the country.
Shealy went 12-3 overall in her 15 matches on the day, all against Division I competitors. She opened the day with a set of seven matches, going 5-2, with single wins over opponents from Brown, Cornell, and Northwestern. Against fencers from Notre Dame and the University of Pennsylvania, Shealy went 1-1 against both schools to finish the first round in a tie for sixth place.
In the second round, Shealy faced fencers from Penn State and Yale and won all four of her matches, out-touching her opponents by nine points to move into fourth place. In the third round, Shealy won her first three matches, defeating two opponents from Duke and one from UC-San Diego before falling to the Tritons' second fencer.
Shealy excelled on the day in close matches, posting a 4-1 record in bouts decided by a 5-4 score. After going 2-2 in her first four matches, Shealy won 10 in a row before dropping her final match of the day.
Shealy will open tomorrow's action at 9 a.m. against a pair of fencers from Columbia and one each from St. John's and Harvard, including two of the three fencers currently ranked ahead of her. She will end the day against opponents from Princeton and Ohio State.
With her 12 wins, Shealy is guaranteed a winning record. She has Brandeis in 14th place, just behind a UCSD squad with three fencers in the women's competition. Shealy already has the most wins by a Brandeis fencer at the NCAA Championships since 2008. She is tied for the third-most wins of any Brandeis woman at the NCAAs with Tracy Marien '03, in 2003.
Full results from the NCAA Championships are available at https://escrimeresults.com/ncaa/ncaa2022.html.
