Maria Stamos, the lone member of New York University's Women's Fencing Team competing at the NCAA Championships, won three of her eight bouts on Friday and posted a 20th-place finish overall. 

The four-day event, which consists of all NCAA Divisions, is being held at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, IN, March 24-27.

The only Division III qualifier in foil, Stamos won three bouts on Thursday and added three more on Friday.

Each fencer faced all of the other 23 qualifiers, and Stamos finished with a 6-17 overall record.

"This was the most amazing learning experience," Stamos said. "The level of fencing was the highest I've ever seen. It was a completely different world. The energy in the room was like nothing I've ever seen." 

On Friday, she defeated Anna Novoseltseva of Temple University 5-2, Catherine Flanagan of Duke University 5-4 and Rafaella Gomes of UC San Diego 5-1. 

On Thursday, Stamos posted wins over Sabrina Cho of the University of Pennsylvania (5-1) and Renata Chusid of Cornell University (5-4), as well as Camilla Rivano of Ohio State University (5-3), who went on to earn All-America honors as a third-place finisher. 

"Defeating Camilla was definitely the highlight of the competition for me," Stamos added. "The whole experience just whets my appetite to return next year and have a better performance."

"Maria fenced very well this weekend," said Head Coach Steve Mormando. "She lost eight bouts either 4-5 or 3–5, and in many of those she was winning. This was an incredibly hard Division I event with many of her opponents being on national teams from around the world. It was a great result for her first year of collegiate fencing."

The women's competition is now complete. The men will fence on Saturday and Sunday, with NYU sporting four qualifiers: Ian Carpenter (epee), Jamie Ren (saber), Ian Sanders (epee), Kevin Zu (saber).