Takedown Report

2024 Women’s Nationals Collegiate Recap

Just over a month after the conclusion of the Women’s Collegiate Wrestling season, many athletes showed out to claim a World Team spot at Nationals this past weekend. In addition to current collegiate athletes, many commits also competed and gave fans a glimpse at the talent they will be bringing to college lineups in seasons to come. For this overview, I will be focusing on U20 and U23 results.
U20 Women’s Nationals
In the finals at 50kg, future Life Running Eagle, Anaya Falcon, got two dominant wins over Iowa’s Nyla Valencia in their best-of-three series. Valencia was a runner-up at U20s last season wrestling unattached. Falcon is continually ranked in the top 25 pound-for-pound for her class and is a 3x California state champ. She will certainly be an exciting addition to Life’s roster.
Iowa’s first champ of the day was Brianna Gonzalez at 53kg. Gonzalez was the runner-up at NCWWCs this season after losing the finals match to Felicity Taylor. Gonzalez secured her top spot here with several dominant wins including two tech falls over King commit Clare Booe. Booe will be an immediate impact athlete for the King team with two Fargo titles, a Super 32 championship finish, and a first-place finish at last season’s East Stroudsburg Open as a high school senior.
This season’s NAIA National Champ Cristelle Rodriguez of Doane put on another dominant performance at Nationals, winning her final series with two pins in under three minutes total. Lexi Janiak of Aurora claimed the top spot at 59 kg over 2023 Fargo Champion Aubre Krazer with an 11-0 first match, and a closer 8-4 decision win in their second bout. Janiak finished third at NCWWCs this past season and is a 2023 U20 Bronze Medalist.  62kg had one of the tightest matchups, with future Iowa Hawkeye Cadence Diduch dropping … more at … Intermatwrestle.com/Womens-nationals-collegiate-recap
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‘They’re as tough as anybody’: As women’s wrestling is on the rise nationwide, Spokane hosts this year’s national championships
By Roberta Simonson and Alexandra Duggan The Spokesman-Review
As 15-year-old Raenah Smith looked around at the thousands of women and girls filling the Podium in Spokane, all there to wrestle in the U.S. Marine Corps Women’s National Championships, she marveled at how the sport has given her trailblazing female role models in a male-dominated sport. “I look up to a lot of the college women wrestling right now,” Raenah said at the tournament on Friday. “And I want to be like them.”
Raenah is home-schooled, but wrestles for Mead High School. She’s competing this week in the championship but has wrestled girls and boys since age 9. In the last six years, she’s seen the sport grow significantly, she said at the tournament on Friday. No longer are girls wrestling only boys; they’re able to have a tournament to themselves. “I try my best against boys. They’re stronger. It’s hard. But it gives me a sense of confidence because you’re beating someone bigger,” she said.
Women’s wrestling is the fastest-growing high school sport in the United States, according to data from the National Federation of State High School Associations. The number of high school girls who competed in wrestling more than quintupled from 2013 to 2023, growing from 6,545 to over 50,000. The championships hosted in Spokane span eight divisions, ranging from age 7 to 23.
Champions in the four age divisions this weekend are eligible to earn a spot on Team USA for the Pan-Am and World championships later this summer. “This tournament has been going on for so long. But every single year it grows, and so does women’s wrestling,” 21-year-old Yele Aycock said, just as she stepped off the mat after winning her first round. Women and girls fly in from around the country just to be part of the championship. Some were sporting shirts from Iowa, California, Montana, Idaho and more.
Aycock is competing in Spokane from North Central College in Illinois, but she’s from a small town in New Mexico – a town that never had girls and women’s wrestling tournaments. “Coming from there where there’s no girls tournaments, to here, where it’s all women’s wrestling and we’re taking up 18 mats – I think it’s super cool,” she said. “It’s amazing to see.”
Aycock and Smith both grew up watching their brothers wrestle. And they both knew they could do it, too. “I think it’s a really big confidence booster where, maybe you lose a match to a guy just because he’s a lot bigger. But when you win a match, it’s because you’re just better at wrestling,” Aycock said. “Now that women are wrestling women, it’s really a show of skill and how good you are at the sport.”
With more than 70 schools intending to sponsor the sport in 2023-24, the National Collegiate Athletic Association announced plans in February for its first women’s wrestling championship in 2026.
This is the second time the city has hosted this event. In 2022, Spokane was selected as the host city for the championships for three consecutive years starting in 2023. “Last year we had 1,473 athletes, and this year we already have 1,520 athletes registered. … more at … Spokesman.com/Theyre-as-tough-as-anybody-as-womens-wrestling
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NCAA Women’s Wrestling Faces Dilemma Prior To Sanctioned Status
NCAA women’s coaches are divided on a proposal that could significantly alter the course of the 2024-25 season.
It doesn’t get closer than a tie. 
A survey was sent to all NCAA women’s college coaches asking if more than 10 wrestlers should be allowed to participate at regionals next season. 
The results?
YES: 36
NO: 36
Note: Several coaches didn’t vote. 
The next question on the survey was not split. If you answered yes, what should the number of qualifiers be? The results were 63.9 percent for 12 or less and 36.1 (10) percent for 15 (26 votes).
A maximum of 15 wrestlers from each team can participate at regionals, which means a maximum of 15 can compete at the National Collegiate Women’s Wrestling Championships. 
Women’s wrestling is projected to be an NCAA-sanctioned sport by 2026. The assumption is that each team will qualify a maximum of one wrestler per weight for the national championships (10 total). 
The argument for switching to 10 is that powerhouse programs like Iowa, King, McKendree, and North Central can stockpile their line-ups. Quality wrestlers might go elsewhere if multiple wrestlers from the same team couldn’t qualify. 
Other teams lose out on high-caliber wrestlers and qualification spots as they fight an uphill battle against top programs.
A Change Of Heart
North Central coach Joe Norton used to think that was the way to go, and he understands the arguments for moving to 10, but he’s swung completely the other way. His team won the 2023 National Collegiate Women’s Wrestling Championships with 15 All-Americans and finished second this year with 14.  “The recruiting part of sending 15 is over because we’d go to 10 in 2026,” Norton said. “This is the last year I can recruit by saying in 2025 we can bring 15. Once we’re NCAA-sanctioned next year, I can’t recruit under that model anymore because 2026 will presumably be 10.
“When you throw the recruiting argument out of it, which is the biggest argument for going to 10, it’s a no-brainer to bring 15 because we’re trying to draw eyes to women’s wrestling. We’re trying to make people women’s wrestling fans. We’re trying to make men’s wrestling fans into women’s wrestling fans.” … more at … Flowrestling.org/NCAA-womens-wrestling-faces-dilemma-prior-to-sanctioned-status
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Increasing popularity in girls wrestling leads school board to hire more coaches
The increasing interest and popularity of girls wrestling led the Marshalltown Community School Districr board members to hire two extra coaches during the regular Monday meeting.
Director of Athletics and Activities Ryan Isgrig asked the board to hire a head coach for the Marshalltown High School team and another for Miller Middle School. The move would help enhance the relatively new program, he said. “When we first came here two years ago, we sat in front of you for esports and girls wrestling,” Isgrig said. “We continued to evaluate those programs and I think they have trended in the right direction.”
Some highlights of the program are the increased number of athletes. Isgrig said they had no idea of the turnout they could expect when the program was introduced. Initially, about 25 girls signed up to wrestle. The main question was how many of them would complete the season, much less the first week since many had never wrestled before. “We were really excited with the number of girls interested,” he said. … more at … Timesrepublican.com/Increasing-popularity-in-girls-wrestling-leads-school-board-to-hire-more-coaches

April 18, 2024 - Posted by The TakeDown Report | Uncategorized