Last night the fencing team became the first team ever to win the NCAA overall team championship.

By combined results from the women's foil team and the men's foil, sabre and epee squads, the Lions roared to the national title, shutting down Notre Dame, Columbia, and Temple.

"We haven't stopped smiling for three hours," Lisa Posthumus said as the Lady Lions and the men's sabre squad arrived at University Park Airport last night.

"It feels great," Kowalski said. "I think the best thing, for the women especially, is that we finally beat Temple when it counted. That's all that mattered. For the last two years, we haven't beaten them, and when it mattered, we beat them."

"The sweetest part of all, is that we beat Columbia to win the title," Chris Reuter added on the men's behalf.

The Lady Lions opened the competition Saturday in the preliminary rounds and finished along with the sabre squad on Sunday. The women's team finished third and the sabre squad placed fourth. The foil and epee squads started fencing Monday and placed second and first, respectively. The epee win sealed the overall team victory.

"Everybody did a great job," Coach Emmanuil Kaidanov said following the first day of competition. He and the foil and epee squads remain in South Bend until tomorrow to complete the individual competitions.

"I think something that also makes it so much better is that it wasn't just the men who won and the women who won -- it was the whole team," Kowalski said. "It wasn't a women's team and a men's team, it was the entire Penn State team, and that's the best feeling."

Kowalski, Posthumus, Reuter and the other members of the women's foil team and sabre squad returned to a small crowd of fellow teammates and unsuspecting families awaiting arrivals at the University Park Airport.

Of those returning, David Cox, Ali Rezazadeh, Jennifer Carcich and Kowalski also placed in the individual competitions. Cox took fourth and Rezazadeh took 11th in sabre. Kowalski and Carcich finished 11th and 14th, respectively, in women's foil.

"This was my third attempt at the championship and it feels awesome," Cox said. "It is just so great. It's not just the fact that we beat Columbia, but it's the title for Penn State, the first one."

Cox earned All-America status with his fourth-place finish, but he and his teammates were more concerned with the team championship. The title is the first of its kind since the reorganization of the NCAA tournament.