Former South Winneshiek Excessive College wrestler Felicity Taylor at U.S. Crew Trials on Could 22, 2022, at Xtream Area in Coralville.

IOWA CITY – Felicity Taylor didn’t entertain worldwide wrestling when she ventured into the game as a freshman at South Winneshiek.

A state cross nation and observe athlete for the Warriors, wrestling grew to become a strategy to stay lively and keep conditioning all through the winter. In a brief time period, Taylor demonstrated a knack for the game, changing into extra uncovered to senior-level girls’s wrestling.

“It was by no means a aim of mine to be at this degree and compete for Crew USA,” Taylor mentioned of her begin in wrestling. “I’d say about my junior 12 months of highschool is once I began getting extra critical about it and striving for these targets to be on Crew USA.”

Taylor, a member of College of Iowa’s first girls’s wrestling staff, will get her alternative as a member of the U.S. girls’s freestyle staff on the United World Wrestling World Cup this weekend at Xtream Area in Coralville. The occasion marks the primary time the boys’s and girls’s World Cup can be held concurrently in the identical venue.

“Tremendous excited that the world is coming to Iowa Metropolis and Coralville,” mentioned Iowa Coach Clarissa Chun, who was a member of the 2001 U.S. Crew that competed alongside Greco-Roman on the World Cup in France. “What a particular occasion we’ve this weekend with the World Cup being in our yard of the College of Iowa, and extra importantly that Felicity Taylor will get to compete and placed on a efficiency on the world stage.”

Taylor was a pioneer within the state lengthy earlier than the Iowa Ladies Excessive College Athletic Union held its first sanctioned wrestling season. She was the primary feminine Higher Iowa Convention in 2017, competing towards boys. Taylor was additionally a sectional champion, along with her accolades and All-American honors in ladies’ wrestling.

Even whereas she nonetheless competed at South Winn, Taylor was holding wrestling clinics and giving speeches to youthful ladies. She attracted as much as 20 ladies to start out the game after one in all her camps. Taylor can even be a catalyst for exposing Iowa females of all ages to the best degree of wrestling.

“It’s nice to have the ability to have it native, particularly with Iowa simply sanctioning girls’s wrestling in highschool,” Taylor mentioned. “It’s a fantastic alternative for all the women.”

She competed at McKendree for 3 seasons, reaching the Nationwide Collegiate Girls’s Wrestling Championship finals twice and successful a 2021 nationwide title. Taylor transferred to Iowa earlier this 12 months, changing into a key addition to the Hawkeyes first girls’s staff.

“Personally, it was essential to have Felicity be part of the College of Iowa program,” Chun mentioned. “She’s a fantastic position mannequin. She led the best way in ladies’ wrestling within the state of Iowa at a highschool degree. She’s a fantastic chief. She comes from a tough working household.”

The ladies’s program has spawned the Girls’s Hawkeye Wrestling Membership. Present Hawkeyes personal World and Olympics aspirations. Taylor has worldwide expertise as a 2022 U23 World Crew member, putting fifth on the World Championships in Spain. She has additionally been on the U.S. Crew that competed within the 2019 Junior Pan American Championships in Brazil.

Now, Taylor could have the possibility to take the stage with the world’s finest rivals in her residence state and hours from her hometown of Spillville.

“I’m actually excited,” Taylor mentioned. “It’s a tremendous alternative to be part of this staff and to have the ability to do it in Iowa Metropolis is even higher. I’m excited. I’m able to compete. I’m prepared to point out the world, present Iowa Metropolis, what Iowa girls’s wrestling appears to be like like and the place we’re at.”

Taylor mentioned her coaching hasn’t modified, main as much as the occasion. She is treating like every other match, specializing in what she does finest to have success. Chun has excessive expectations for Taylor this weekend.

“I feel she is robust and versatile,” Chun mentioned. “She is aware of what she needs when she will get on the mat. She’s a competitor.

“I feel she’s going to do lots of nice issues on the world stage and it’s about letting herself shine on the market.”

Taylor expects a reasonably large exhibiting of household and buddies. The 2-day freestyle twin match can be for Jap Iowa followers to observe high-level wrestling. It’s additionally an opportunity for her to expertise what it may be like when the Iowa girls’s program begins official competitors for the 2023-24 season.

“The Iowa followers are like no different followers,” Taylor mentioned. “They’re superior and wild. You positively hear them, it doesn’t matter what, so I’m simply excited to be there.”