Iowa women’s wrestling has 6 individual national champions, claims team title at NCWWC

CEDAR RAPIDS — Iowa women’s wrestling, in its historic inaugural season, has made some more history.

The Hawkeyes claimed a team title at the National Collegiate Women’s Wrestling Championships to put an exclamation point on their first season of competition.

Iowa’s team title is in addition to six individual national championships claimed on Saturday night at the Alliant Energy PowerHouse.

Emilie Gonzalez, Ava Bayless, Felicity Taylor, Reese Larramendy, Marlynne Deede and Kylie Welker all walked away with national championships.

“To see my teammates succeed alongside me is really just truly something special,” Larramendy said. “Not only am I grateful to be a national champ, but alongside these girls is something else.”

While Deede and Welker already qualified for the U.S. Olympic Team Trials, the individual titles double as qualifying events for the rest of Iowa’s champions.

The Hawkeyes’ slew of national titles followed a near-perfect semifinal round. Of the 10 Iowa wrestlers who reached the semifinals, nine advanced to the finals.

“The first session today was huge,” Larramendy said, looking back at the semifinal round. “Everything went the way that it needed to go during that first session. If those things don’t happen, we’re in a different position here.”

North Central College was the biggest obstacle in Iowa’s pursuit of the NCWWC team title. The Cardinals enjoyed comfortable leads throughout the weekend, including a 17-point lead going into the finals.

But Iowa finished with a team score of 204, followed by North Central at 198.

“With the team points being so close, everyone did what they needed to do,” Larramendy said. “If somebody does something different or doesn’t get that outcome, could be a different team outcome.”

Welker’s win over North Central’s Yelena Makoyed — the final match of the final round — clinched Iowa’s team championship.

“I didn’t know the team score at all,” Welker said. “That probably was a good thing. … The nerves were super high going into the match.”

Before that, Larramendy delivered a pin to cut the deficit to 3.5, and Deede’s championship gave Iowa a half-point lead.

Twelve of Iowa’s 15 wrestlers at NCWWC Nationals earned All-America status, which required a top-eight finish in their weight class.

Ava Rose and Emily Frost, while not earning All-America status, combined to deliver 10.5 team points at two of Iowa’s more inexperienced weight classes. That proved to be crucial.

“They fought, they did the best they could and got points for the team,” Iowa Coach Clarissa Chun said. “Proud of them because they’ve wrestled tough matches and came out with some good, tough wins too.”

Iowa’s team NCWWC title is essentially its second national championship of the season after also winning the NWCA National Duals in January.

“We have such a long way to go, and this is not slowing down any time soon,” Larramendy said.

Most of the contributors to the 2023-24 Hawkeyes are expected to be back in 2024-25. The only anticipated departures among the 15 Iowa wrestlers at NCWWC are Deede and Taylor.

“Winning this feels great, but I know for me and my coaching staff, we are going to go back to work,” said Chun, the 2024 NWCA Coach of the Year. “We can’t sit on this. If you sit on this, you get caught snoozing. And we don’t want to snooze.”

Iowa national champions

Iowa All-Americans

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