A small portion of the Iowa girls’s wrestling program made its highly-anticipated debut this weekend — and the early returns look extremely promising.

Seven Hawkeye girls’s wrestlers competed on the prestigious Missouri Valley Open on Friday and Saturday. Though all of them wrestled unattached — the primary official season for the Iowa girls is scheduled for 2023-24 — it marked the primary collegiate competitors the place all of them repped the College of Iowa.

And so they all placed on a present.

5 of the seven gained particular person titles: Sterling Dias at 101 kilos, Nyla Valencia at 109, Felicity Taylor at 116, Nanea Estrella at 136, and Reese Larramendy at 143. The opposite two, Emilie and Brianna Gonzalez, took second to their teammates: Emilie misplaced to Dias, 3-1, within the 101 finals; Brianna misplaced to Valencia, 6-5, within the 109 finals.

All instructed, the seven Iowa girls’s wrestlers completed with a 36-2 mixed report over the two-day occasion. Once they weren’t wrestling one another, the Hawkeyes went 34-0 towards the competitors with 25 technical falls and a pair of pins and collectively outscored their opponents by a staggering 330-35.

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It turns into much more spectacular when you think about that the Missouri Valley Open is broadly considered one of many hardest in-season tournaments in girls’s collegiate wrestling.

There have been 495 wrestlers from 45 completely different groups, together with McKendree, final yr’s NCAA girls’s crew champs; Campbellsville, final yr’s NAIA girls’s crew champs; and Indian Hills, final yr’s junior-college girls’s crew champs. Among the many entrants had been as many as 10 previous age-level world crew members, plus quite a few nationwide champs and All-Individuals.

This was a chance for the Iowa girls to get an sincere evaluation about how they stack up towards among the finest in girls’s school wrestling. Seems, all these highly-touted recruits that head coach Clarissa Chun has dropped at Iowa Metropolis are fairly, fairly good.

Dias went 5-0 with 4 shutout technical falls to win at 101 kilos, and beat two NAIA All-Individuals alongside the best way. Valencia outscored her 5 opponents 42-7 en path to gold at 109, together with a 6-2 semifinal win over Iowa Wesleyan’s Mia Palumbo, a returning NAIA nationwide finalist. Emilie and Brianna Gonzalez each beat All-Individuals to satisfy their teammates within the finals.

Taylor went 6-0 with three technical falls and two pins, notching wins over a U.S. Open place-winner, a pair of top-four finishers on the Beneath-20 world crew trials final spring, and an NAIA All-American. Estrella outscored her six opponents 59-3 and beat a U20 world crew trials finalist and an NCAA finalist. Larramendy beat three All-Individuals and a Senior-level U.S. Open finalist on her strategy to six wins by a mixed 63-13.

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The general efficiency was each elements spectacular and but not extremely stunning, contemplating the sterling credentials these wrestlers. To call just a few:

• Dias is a two-time Cadet world bronze medalist and Junior nationwide champ.
• Valencia was on the U23 world crew this previous summer time.
• Each Gonzalez sisters are Junior nationwide champs.
• Taylor was additionally on the U23 world crew, gained the U.S. Open, and completed second in USA Wrestling’s Senior world crew trials course of to an eventual world champ.
• Larramendy took fifth on the U20 world championships.
• Estrella gained the U.S. Open final spring after taking second on the NAIA nationwide championships.

However what this program-opening efficiency does do, greater than something, is increase the stakes for subsequent season when these girls rep the Hawkeyes for actual. Along with the seven that competed this weekend, there are others who didn’t that can add extra firepower to Chun’s first Iowa lineup — like Kylie Welker, Sam Calkins, Ella Schmit, and plenty of extra.

So this weekend’s efficiency was one other thrilling step ahead for the Hawkeye girls, even when all the outcomes go on the books as unofficial and unattached. It is also a spark within the continued pleasure that is constructing round this program, and one more trace that exhibits these girls are able to win large, win early, and win usually.

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Iowa girls’s wrestling outcomes from Missouri Valley Open

Sterling Dias, 101 kilos

• Match 1: 11-0 tech fall over Jennesis Martinez (Colorado Mesa)
• Match 2: 10-0 tech fall over Sage Beltran (Missouri Valley)
• Quarterfinals: 10-0 tech fall over Emma Cochran (Grand View)
• Semifinals: 10-0 tech fall over Ira Navarro (College of Windfall)
• Finals: 3-1 over Emilie Gonzalez (Iowa)

Emilie Gonzalez, 101 kilos

• Match 1: 6-4 choice over Erin Hikiji (College of Windfall)
• Match 2: 10-0 tech fall over Hannah Michael (Grand View)
• Quarterfinals: 12-2 tech fall over Alaina Sunlin (Iowa Wesleyan)
• Semifinals: 10-0 tech fall over Alyssa Quezaire (Missouri Baptist)
• Finals: 3-1 loss to Sterling Dias (Iowa)

Nyla Valencia, 109 kilos

• Match 1: 10-0 tech fall over Laura Lincoln (Missouri Valley)
• Match 2: 10-0 tech fall over Korigan Wilkey (Indiana Tech)
• Quarterfinals: 10-0 tech fall over Pauline Granados (McKendree)
• Semifinals: 6-2 over Mia Palumbo (Iowa Wesleyan)
• Finals: 6-5 over Brianna Gonzalez (Iowa)

Brianna Gonzalez, 109 kilos

• Match 1: 10-0 tech fall over Kali Christy (College of Saint Mary)
• Match 2: 12-2 tech fall over Jenavi Alejandro (Tiffin)
• Quarterfinals: 8-4 over Natalie Reyna-Rodriguez (Southern Oregon)
• Semifinals: 10-0 tech fall over Emma Baertlein (Unattached)
• Finals: 6-5 loss to Nyla Valencia (Iowa)

Felicity Taylor, 116 kilos

• Match 1: 11-0 tech fall over Shea Reisel (Campbellsville)
• Match 2: Winner by fall (1:44) over Chloe Krebsbach (Grand View)
• Match 3: 14-0 tech fall over Elvie Villa (McKendree)
• Quarterfinals: 6-3 over Hannah Corridor (Central Methodist)
• Semifinals: 10-0 tech fall over Juliana Diaz (Missouri Baptist)
• Finals: Winner by fall (2:26) over Ashley Gooman (College of Windfall)

Nanea Estrella, 136 kilos

• Match 1: 12-0 tech fall over Oliva Flores (Mates College)
• Match 2: 12-0 tech fall over Jolynn Harris (McKendree)
• Match 3: 12-0 tech fall over Kira Phillipa (Texas Girl’s College)
• Quarterfinals: 10-0 tech fall over Aliyah Yates (Cumberlands)
• Semifinals: 10-0 tech fall over Claire DiCugno (Unattached)
• Finals: 3-3 over Nina Makem (Augsburg)

Reese Larramendy, 143 kilos

• Match 1: 11-0 tech fall over Ashlee Palimo’o (Midland)
• Match 2: 10-0 tech fall over Sidney Ramos (Tiffin)
• Match 3: 10-0 tech fall over Madison Diaz (Grand View)
• Quarterfinals: 5-4 over Katie Lange (Augsburg)
• Semifinals: 12-4 over Mea Mohler (Texas Wesleyan)
• Finals: 15-5 tech fall over Alexis Gomez (Grand View)

Cody Goodwin covers wrestling and highschool sports activities for the Des Moines Register. Observe him on Twitter at @codygoodwin.