Hawkeye women set for biggest test to date as National Duals arrives.
The inaugural Iowa women’s wrestling season has been an absolute success thus far.
In addition to its 7–0 record in duals, a trio of dominant tournament showings — including this past weekend at the local Soldier Salute — have left the Hawkeyes as the number one team in the country heading into their highest profile competition to date.
Enter the 2024 NWCA/USMC National Duals.
An event that you will not find on the NCAA Division I men’s side of things (much to the chagrin of many), this dual tournament encompasses the top programs from across the rest of the collegiate wrestling spectrum.
Aside from Iowa vying for the NCAA women’s crown, separate tournaments will also produce a champion for the NCAA men (Division’s II and III) as well as NAIA men’s and women’s divisions. In total, 93 teams across six different divisions will descend upon Cedar Falls, Iowa to battle for a dual national championship.
When it comes to the top-ranked Hawkeyes they’ll help to comprise a loaded 15-team field featuring seven of the top eight finishers from a year ago — including ten of the top 12 teams in the latest NCAA Women’s Coaches rankings.
To give you an even better idea of just how stacked this competition is set to be, the very same Iowa squad that just yesterday afternoon was once again ranked number one via a poll comprised of college coaches won’t even be the top seed come Friday when it first takes the mat.
Instead, that distinction will go to reigning NCWWC (akin to the official NCAA Tournament wrestling fans are familiar with on the men’s side) national champion North Central (IL) — last year’s runner up at National Duals.
The second-seeded Hawkeyes, meanwhile, will seek to advance through the opposite side of the bracket.
Barring injury/absence the path for all comers this weekend will be littered with an astounding 79 of the top 100 wrestlers comprising the aforementioned up-to-date coaches’ rankings (the top ten athletes are ranked for each of the ten weights).
And somehow even more impressive than that, 44/50 top-five ranked wrestlers come from teams that will be in attendance at the UNI-Dome, site of this year’s tournament.
In fact, the highest ranking of any wrestler whose team won’t be competing this weekend is fourth — meaning all 30 wrestlers with a current top-three national ranking come from teams set to take the mat on Friday.
Let that sink in for a second.
Among them, the Hawkeyes will come loaded for bear as much as any squad that they may face.
And they’ll need to with the likes of North Central, not to mention King (TN) and McKendree University (IL) set to bring power-packed lineups of their own.
***Per Iowa’s match notes released on Wednesday afternoon the Hawkeyes will be without #1 Emilie Gonzalez (101 lbs), #2 Nanea Estrella (136 lbs) and #8 Esther Han (136 lbs) for this weekend’s competition.***
These are programs with anywhere from a five-to-18-year head start on the Hawkeyes in terms of building up a roster to both compete and win at the highest level (not that anyone in the sport feels sorry for Iowa and its own plethora of immediate advantages).
For instance, North Central currently lists 53 wrestlers on its official team roster, whereas Iowa barely surpasses half that mark with a group more than 71 percent (20/28) comprised of either true or redshirt freshmen.
That gaudy figure for the Cardinals also happens to include 21(!) previous All-Americans — seven of whom have been national finalists at least once already in their careers.
Fourth-seeded McKendree — with a substantial 43 athletes in its own right — just brought in a freshman class with three of the top-eight ranked pound-for-pound high school wrestlers in America. And that was on top of a monster collection of transfers who’ve been added to the Bearcats roster in the wake of its ‘failure’ to collect a fourth-straight NCWWC national title this past season (where it finished third).
Meanwhile, third-seeded King — winners of the past two editions of National Duals and runners-up at the previous three NCWWC’s — has added some serious firepower of its own.
Simply put, it will be no picnic for Iowa to navigate through the two other members of this quartet that will likely be required in order to emerge as champions come Saturday afternoon — and do so in its debut at the event no less.
If you’ve got the chance to make it over to the UNI-Dome in person this weekend I’d highly recommend it. Tickets are still available, and the amount of high caliber wrestling you’re guaranteed to see across all of the divisions set to compete has got to be worth the price of admission.
But for anyone who can’t make it to Cedar Falls to catch the action, the entire event will also be streamed live on FloWrestling here starting on Friday morning.
Iowa’s opening round dual against 15-seed Adrian College (MI) is currently slated for a 2:30 p.m. start. Should the Hawkeyes advance they’d take on the winner of Presbyterian College (SC) versus New Jersey City University roughly 90 minutes later at 4:00 p.m.
Up-to-date brackets and mat assignments can also be found for your viewing pleasure at this link.
Enjoy the wrestling!