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Iowa Women's Wrestling

wyldhawk9

HR MVP
Dec 27, 2004
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Columbus, OH
There's a lot of excitement around Iowa becoming the very first P5 school to add women's wrestling. It's a fantastic and welcome development, and we all want the Hawks to dominate from day one. Figured I'd start a thread for all of the questions and updates about the program, its personnel and other related things of note (rankings, recruiting, scheduling, etc.)

Who will the Hawks compete against? A google search for women's wrestling team rankings turns up Flo rankings, WCWA rankings, NAIA rankings, NWCA rankings and some others. Which one(s) is the most reliable? Will the Hawks be competing under the NCAA banner or will they start out under a different governing body until more NCAA programs come on board?
Could someone share a list of teams that have been historically good (or a link the website that tracks end of season results) that uneducated fans should know?

Is anyone selling Iowa Women's Wrestling gear yet? Where can I get a t-shirt or hoodie to show my fandom?

Did Chun already name assistants and I missed it? Who are they? or Speculate on who they could be.


Here are recruits who've visited or scheduled a visit thus far:
Emma Bruntil - visited 1/6/22 - 2x college champ from McKendree - 2x college champ -Yariguin Champ - ranked #1 @ 143 lbs before entering transfer portal
Korina Blades - visited during Minnesota dual - Jr World Bronze - #1 @ 138 lbs - #5 p4p
Kennedy Blades - visited during Minnesota dual - Jr World Champ - #2 @ 164 lbs - #3 p4p
Kylie Welker - visited 1/28/22 - U23 Bronze, Jr World Champ - #1 @164 - #1 pfp - COMMITTED - 2/3/22!!
Faith Cole - visited 1/28/22 - #4@106
Katie Gomez- visited 1/28/22 - #1@122 - #4pfp
Brianna Gonzalez- visited 1/28/22 - #1 @ 100 - #14 pfp (twin of Emilie Gonzalez) - COMMITTED - 2/21/22
Emilie Gonzalez- visited 1/28/22 - #6@100 (twin of Brianna Gonzalez) - COMMITTED - 2/21/22
Reese Larramendy- visited 1/28/22 - #1@144 - #19 pfp (Wyoming Seminary) COMMITTED 2/6/22
Ella Schmit- visited 1/28/22 - 3x IA champ - #3@117 (Bettendorf) - COMMITTED - 2/5/22

Jennifer Soto- visited 1/28/22 - #2@122
Nyla Valencia - visited 2/5/22 - #3@106 - COMMITTED - 2/10/22

Currently competing for the Hawkeye Wrestling Club (added 9/11/21):
Jordan Nelson
Rachel Watters
Victoria Francis
 
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Women’s wrestling is gaining traction, Iowa will have a team of top wrestlers together soon.
Chun has not hired any other coaches yet, my belief is the next big announcement will be her assistant followed by a few transfer/recruits.
Until another top university joins in like PSU or OSU they will not have to much competition once the team is established.
Mckendree university and a few others will be on the schedule I would assume.
 
Adding weight classes and rankings (from flo):

Emma Bruntil - 2x college champ - ranked #1 @ 143 lbs before entering transfer portal
Korina Blades - #1 @ 138 lbs - #5 p4p
Kennedy Blades - #2 @ 164 lbs - #3 p4p
Kylie Welker - #1 @ 164 lbs - #1 p4p
 
Adding weight classes and rankings (from flo):

Emma Bruntil - 2x college champ - ranked #1 @ 143 lbs before entering transfer portal
Korina Blades - #1 @ 138 lbs - #5 p4p
Kennedy Blades - #2 @ 164 lbs - #3 p4p
Kylie Welker - #1 @ 164 lbs - #1 p4p
With both Weller and Blades at 164, If both come, who goes up a weight?
 
Women’s wrestling is gaining traction, Iowa will have a team of top wrestlers together soon.
Chun has not hired any other coaches yet, my belief is the next big announcement will be her assistant followed by a few transfer/recruits.
Until another top university joins in like PSU or OSU they will not have to much competition once the team is established.
Mckendree university and a few others will be on the schedule I would assume.
Great info! Thanks any guesses as to who will be joining the staff?
 
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With both Weller and Blades at 164, If both come, who goes up a weight?
Will be interesting to see that play out. We like choices according to coach Brands, I’d imaging coach Chun feels the same way :)

Here are the collegiate women weight classes: 101, 109, 116, 123, 130, 136, 143, 155, 170, and 191
 
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Great info! Thanks any guesses as to who will be joining the staff?
Let me start by saying I have no inside info as I’m not part of the program (most of the others no this of me on here).
I do however follow the program intently, my hope is one of the high caliber competitors of late are brought into the staff, but most are still competing ( like Adelline Gray and Hellen Maroulis). Who the top prospects for assistant coach are I’m not sure.
 
Let me start by saying I have no inside info as I’m not part of the program (most of the others no this of me on here).
I do however follow the program intently, my hope is one of the high caliber competitors of late are brought into the staff, but most are still competing ( like Adelline Gray and Hellen Maroulis). Who the top prospects for assistant coach are I’m not sure.
Either of those would be big splash hires for sure, and i absolutely hope you're right.

I have a lot of catching up to do. I don't know the names of too teams, coaches, fan bases, tournaments, etc. For example, how many assistants can a women's team have? Same as the men?
 
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Either of those would be big splash hires for sure, and i absolutely hope you're right.

I have a lot of catching up to do. I don't know the names of too teams, coaches, fan bases, tournaments, etc. For example, how many assistants can a women's team have? Same as the men?
Chun did an interview on bader show and she said she gets 2 assistants
 
I really hope their dual meets are either right before, or right after the men's meets. I'm super excited about the women's team, but don't necessarily want to double my trips down to Carver each year, AND they would have a lot more butts in seats if they did it that way.
 
I really hope their dual meets are either right before, or right after the men's meets. I'm super excited about the women's team, but don't necessarily want to double my trips down to Carver each year, AND they would have a lot more butts in seats if they did it that way.
You would think this is what they will do to help build momentum for the program. Marketing in college isn't always the best though.
 
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I really hope their dual meets are either right before, or right after the men's meets. I'm super excited about the women's team, but don't necessarily want to double my trips down to Carver each year, AND they would have a lot more butts in seats if they did it that way.
Before would be their best bet. People leaving right after the men's action would take a lot of starch out of the room, whereas if they went beforehand the crowd size would only increase throughout the dual and it would be a good warm up for the crowd.
 
Before would be their best bet. People leaving right after the men's action would take a lot of starch out of the room, whereas if they went beforehand the crowd size would only increase throughout the dual and it would be a good warm up for the crowd.
I really like that idea as I have no problem watching back to back meets. Would be a great Friday night.
 
What's everyone's thoughts on if they were to run both mens and womens duals at the same time in Carver, at least for a few duals in their inaugural year? Could easily have two mats going at once.

Possibly set it up when the men are taking on teams where the outcome is not really in doubt. This could give the women's team max exposure to the fans, as they work to establish their own base, while not taking away from the spotlight of a closely contested men's meet....
 
Two mats in a dual would suck. The whole point is that you're in the spotlight. Dividing attention would ruin that, and you wouldn't be able to see everything.

Back to back would work on Sundays, but suck on Friday nights. If they still started at the same time, then they wouldn't get over until around midnight, so that probably wouldn't happen, which means they'd have to start earlier and a lot of us who travel wouldn't make it because Friday is still a work day.
 
I like the back-to back. The women could start at 5 or 6 with the men at 7 or 8. I'd pay half-again as much for my season tickets, although I doubt they would price them that high since most women's sports tickets are pretty inexpensive (or were last time I bought any).
 
What's everyone's thoughts on if they were to run both mens and womens duals at the same time in Carver, at least for a few duals in their inaugural year? Could easily have two mats going at once.
Maybe a dumb question (would not be my first) but does Carver have 4 different locker rooms? Not saying you could not figure out a way to make it work with 2...but a challenge to figure out with both dueling matches as well as back to back matches.
 
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Just in case anyone was wondering, the "BIG announcement" here was that the OSU Women's Wrestling Club is now an official student org. In my opinion, the tweet calling this BIG is a stretch and quite a tease...I pretty sure there are over a thousand official student organizations at OSU - this was not some milestone for women's wrestling - they simply completed the required verification process that every other student org has to complete in order to be official.
 
Victoria Francis is competing for the HWC. Any other women currently part of the club? I would think any women who are currently members of the club would play some kind of role in the recruiting process here as well.
 
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