The Brandeis Fencing Teams had a very successful Sunday last week at the NCAA Northeast Regional Championships that took place at Long Island University. Three members of the sabre squad have been awarded the honor of being able to compete at the NCAA National Fencing Championships.

The NCAA National Collegiate Championships will take place in 2024 at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. This event will begin on March 21 and conclude on March 24. The women’s competition will take place over the first two days while the men’s competition will take place over the second two. Brandeis will be represented by one female fencer and two male fencers.

For the third time in her collegiate athletic career, the women’s representative in this competition is graduate student Maggie Shealy M’25. She finished third at the regional competition, allowing her to be ranked second as she advanced to the nationals. 

The men’s representatives are Tony Escueta ’25 and Lev BenAvram ’26, who gained the opportunity to advance to the NCAA national fencing championship for their third and second years respectively. Escueta received the Bronze medal at the regional championships, beating BenAvram by one seat. Escueta placed seventh and BenAvram placed eighth. 

BenAvram will not compete at the NCAA championships this year, even following his recognition as National Collegiate Sabre Newcomer of the Year last year. He has instead decided to compete at the International World Cup event in Hungary. He is currently ranked eighth in the country and needs to advance to the top four in order to qualify for the 2024 Olympics as a member of the U.S. Men’s National Team.