When NYU sophomore John Cramerus was choosing a college in his senior year of high school, he looked for four important qualities: an urban location, a sophisticated environment, a prominent math department and a strong fencing program. After two years, the math major from Houston has emerged as one of the best fencers on NYU’s varsity team.

Cramerus went 37-20 during the regular season, earning an NYU player of the week and a UAA weekly honor. He had the best finish among all NYU fencers in the NCAA Northeast Regional Championships on March 8, placing ninth in the épée competition and propelling him to the NCAA Fencing Championships two weeks later.

Cramerus, who did not advance to the championships as a freshman, has made a marked improvement in his second year at NYU.                     

“I won many bouts I’m happy about and lost some I’m not proud of,” Cramerus said. “Considering my results last year, I can’t help but be happy with my growth, which has been substantial.”

Cramerus attributes most of his success this year to the mentality he brings to each of his bouts.

“More than anything, I’ve grown in mental strength, which is the most important quality to have in NCAA fencing,” Cramerus said. “Coming into it in my freshman year, my mentality was completely unsuitable and I lost a host of bouts which, on paper, I should’ve won.”

Cramerus said he was always too relaxed at competitions in his freshman year. This year, his mentality was the opposite — although his goal at a tournament is to do well, he makes sure to focus on one bout at a time. This was especially important in the National Championships, which the sophomore said was the most difficult competition he has ever participated in.

“Every person there was fighting tooth and nail in every single bout, and all the competitors were at a similar level,” Cramerus said. “There were no throwaway bouts between high level ones, focus was required from the start of the day to the end if you didn’t want to end up losing the majority of your bouts.”

Cramerus placed 20th out of 24 competitors at nationals, accumulating a 9-14 record. The performance was far below his ultimate goal of becoming an NCAA champion, and he still sees lots of room for improvement.

“No matter how far or close, the pinnacle is what I’m training for, so to be reaching toward any less would be me disappointing myself,” Cramerus said. “Whether I reach my goal is a question only time can answer.”

Cramerus plans on practicing rigorously over the summer in order to improve.

“I’ll be training as much as I can over the summer, and my class schedule this semester inhibited my training somewhat, so I’ll try to craft my schedule next year so that doesn’t occur again,” Cramerus said. “I’m still not satisfied with what I’ve done overall this season and wish strongly to do even better next year.”

A version of this article appeared in the Tuesday, March 31 print edition. Email Jonathan Schifman at [email protected].