After taking chance on Iowa women’s wrestling, Kylie Welker and Hawkeyes now reap rewards

CEDAR RAPIDS — As Iowa’s Kylie Welker won her bout against North Central’s Yelena Makoyed last month at the NCWWC National Championships, it was a full-circle moment.

Welker, the first wrestler to commit to the Hawkeyes in the newfound program’s history, was the one to deliver the team’s championship-clinching win in the final match of NCWWC Nationals.

“Me and my team have been focused on this all year long — not even just this year, but last year — so for it to finally become reality, it’s surreal,” Welker said at the time.

Welker’s moment highlighted a successful inaugural year of team competition — both for the Hawkeyes as a whole and Welker individually — after her leap of faith a few years earlier.

Iowa won two team national titles — the NCWWC title in March and NWCA National Duals in January — and Welker was one of six Hawkeyes to win individual NCWWC titles.

Welker and fellow Hawkeye Felicity Taylor then finished third in their weight classes at last week’s U.S. Olympic Team Trials and therefore are officially on the U.S. National Team. Reese Larramendy finished fourth.

The week before, Larramendy and Brianna Gonzalez won U20 national titles. Ella Schmit and Nyla Valencia, meanwhile, were U20 runners-up. Sterling Dias was a U23 runner-up.

The foundation for the Hawkeyes’ accolade-filled 2023-24 season started with Welker’s recruitment. When Iowa Coach Clarissa Chun recruited the now-sophomore, it was not necessarily an obvious choice for Welker to come to Iowa City.

“I didn’t really have collegiate wrestling on my radar necessarily,” Welker said. “Iowa was the only visit I really took, and I was honestly just going to try to focus on Olympic stuff.”

After all, Welker already was the No. 1 pound-for-pound wrestler in the country in high school, a 2021 junior world champion and second-place finisher in the 2021 U.S. Olympic Team Trials. A collegiate program was not a necessity for her to pursue her wrestling goals.

The “insane” environment at an Iowa-Penn State men’s wrestling dual helped persuade her.

“I didn’t even know that there were that many wrestling fans, let alone crazy wrestling fans,” Welker said.

Welker signed with the Hawkeyes on Feb. 3, 2022 — more than three months before Iowa hired Gary Mayabb as associated head coach and almost two years before Iowa planned to start team competition.

“She didn’t know who the coaching staff was going to be,” Chun said last month. “She didn’t know who her teammates were going to be. She was the first. … She believed in the institution and the University of Iowa.”

Most importantly, Welker believed in Chun.

“I knew Chun, and I knew that she was going to build a great team,” Welker said. “And she did just that.”

More signings quickly followed. Valencia, Schmit, Larramendy and Emilie and Brianna Gonzalez all committed to Iowa in following four weeks. (Fast-forward to this year’s U20 national championships, and four of those five wrestlers finished either first or second.)

By mid-April of that year, Iowa had 10 signees.

“All the girls that committed and were a part of that first year were perfect for the team,” Welker said.

Chun made a point during last month’s NCWWC Nationals to show her gratitude to Welker for “taking a chance on our program.” One of the prizes for Welker’s gamble arrived at 8:46 p.m. on that championship Saturday.

“This is obviously where I was meant to be,” Welker said as a newly-minted national champion.

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