Sophomore Maverick Doherty was 11 years old when her neighbor introduced her to the Salle D’Asaro Fencing Club in Torrance, where she learned to love fencing.

“My neighbor asked me if I wanted to come check out the club because her son recently got into the sport,” Doherty said. “As soon as the head coach there saw me walk in, he offered a free introductory lesson. I was essentially hooked on the sport after that.”

Now 15 years old, Doherty competes in Cadet, a division consisting of fencers ages 13-17, in national and international fencing competitions where she represents Southern Calif. At her first National Championships in 2012, she placed third in her age category.

“I have always been an athletic kid, but fencing is a sport that takes a long time to get good at,” Doherty said. “There are signs of a prodigious fencer and one of those is the passion to learn more, which I had.”

Doherty says that she has really enjoyed the commitments she has made as a fencer since she first took up the sport.

“I participated in fencing camps which were about eight hours a day for a week,” Doherty said. “I jumped at every opportunity to compete at the local level.”

Doherty’s coach, Michael D’Asaro, Jr., has been captivated by Doherty’s work ethic.

“The biggest growth I have seen in Maverick is her maturity both as a fencer and as a person,” D’Asaro said. “I treat her as one of my top competitors and I talk to her as I would to my Olympians.”

She was the youngest fencer in the country to have an A rating in 2014 and earned A ratings again in 2015 and 2016 after taking third in Division 1A at the 2016 National Championships in Dallas.On Sept. 25, she placed ninth at a Cadet World Cup in Konin, Poland and had the opportunity to work with the Women’s Olympic Sabre Team’s head coach, Ed Korfanty.

“As parents, we could not be more proud of her,” Maverick’s mother Melissa Doherty said. “To watch her progress to her current level, I think, is every parent’s dream of a talented athlete. It has been a growth process,and at times had been difficult to watch her struggle, but she works through the challenges and keeps progressing.”

Currently, Doherty is ranked No. 15 among other Cadet fencers in the nation. She states that her goal is to make one of the four spots of the national Cadet team, which will be assembled in the spring of 2017. She is expected to be ranked fifth on the national Cadet Team points list, which compiles points earned by fencers every year, in February.