The stampede continues to march forward.

Monday, the 42nd Division III women’s wrestling program was introduced when Baldwin Wallace University in Berea, Ohio announced it would sponsor women’s wrestling beginning with the 2024-25 season.

Additionally, the school announced it would be building a new state-of-the-art facility to house both its men’s and women’s programs.

The Yellow Jacket women’s team will be under the direction of current men’s coach Jamie Gibbs. The former North Carolina-Pembroke head coach and former Coe College and Wisconsin-La Crosse assistant coach is entering his 12th season at the helm of Baldwin Wallace.

“We are excited and thrilled to add another women’s sport to our growing athletics department,” Baldwin Wallace director of athletics Steve Thompson said in a release. “Men’s wrestling has had a long and great tradition at BW, and we look forward to the women’s program becoming one of the best in Division III.

“Men’s wrestling coach Jamie Gibbs, who has provided tremendous leadership over the last 11 years will provide oversight to the launch of the women’s program.”

Many of the 42 programs have been formed in the last five years and there has been an explosion of teams sponsored by Division III schools in the past two. North Central College — a D3 program in Naperville, Illinois — is the top-ranked NCAA women’s program.

The Cardinals are loaded with talent and have dominated every team they have faced this season. Coach Joe Norton built the program from scratch four years ago and now North Central has four wrestlers ranked first in the country, highlighted by reigning two-time national champion Yelena Makoyed at 170 pounds. 

Augsburg, the winner of 13 D3 team titles, is known for its fierce men's rivalry with Wartburg. The Auggie women are currently ranked fifth and they have already produced one of the best wrestlers in the country. Emily Shilson, an undefeated four-time national champion through three seasons, will compete in the NWCA All-Star Classic on November 22. Augsburg coach Jake Short has a team built to compete for a national championship thanks to five wrestlers ranked in the top eight.

Much of the wave of additions has come since the NCAA announced two years ago that it was elevating women’s wrestling to emerging sport status.

Among the current hotbeds are Ohio, which with the addition of Baldwin Wallace now has four women’s programs in the Ohio Athletic Conference, and Iowa, where five of the nine American Rivers Conference schools sponsor the sport, and a sixth Iowa institution, Cornell College, also sponsors women’s wrestling.

The emergence of programs in Iowa and Ohio has coincided with girls’ high school wrestling being elevated to an officially sponsored sport in both those states.

Among the new programs in Iowa is Wartburg College, where the men’s program has won 15 NCAA Division III crowns. Director of wrestling and men’s coach Eric Keller was asked where does a school start when building a program?

Wartburg announced the addition of women’s wrestling in Oct. of 2021 and introduced its head women’s coach Brady Kyner, a former Knight All-American, this past June. 

“I can answer that in terms of where we were when we announced and what the move was from that point,” Keller said. “Once we announced it, obviously extreme excitement from top to bottom here at the college and from everybody on this campus and in this community.

“The next step was let’s find the perfect person to take on this role. It is an important role because for us, our level of expectation in this sport is the highest level in the country. We wanted to find the person who had the same vision, had the same passion and work ethic…same values…all the things that are really important to our program and our tradition.”

The hiring of Kyner, Keller added, was a no-brainer as Kyner was coming off an All-American career at Wartburg, including finishing fifth last March in Cedar Rapids.

“We wanted somebody who understands who we are and our values, expectations, and lives it. We got someone who has lived it and is on the same page,” Keller added.

Wartburg also has been patient with the process taking months to find a coach and more than a year to recruit athletes before it fields its first team in 2023-24.

“We are thankful that Wartburg administrators understood how important it is to have a year to recruit, have a year to build a roster,” added Keller. “If we were going to do it, we wanted to do it right so you talk about building a roster it is the same idea of finding the right young women who have those same visions, same goals, dreams and expectations and want to be part of a championship culture…and find out how good they can be.

“It is different for us in terms of talking about building a program from scratch. It is not. It is a new team, but it is not building a new program from scratch because there is an extremely high-level program that is established here. The same expectations and same level of support the men’s program has are going to be there for the women’s program as well.”

Kyner has hit the ground running on the recruiting circuit using not only social media to reach out to potential athletes, but showing up and any and all girls’ wrestling tournaments to spread the word that Wartburg is looking for athletes.

“We are just extending our Wartburg family,” Kyner said. “We have a huge history of wrestling success and a tradition that runs deep. That is what we are finding out, is everybody knows about us and were getting a lot answers of athletes that want to join the culture we are building.”

Asked if a separate Division III national championship is coming soon, Kyner said he believes so.

“I think everything points that way, especially with so many Division III women’s wrestling programs,” Kyner said.

A Big Weekend In Wisconsin

A lot of eyes will be in Mequon, Wisconsin this weekend when Concordia University hosts its 29th CUW Open.

The tournament will feature five Top Ten NWCA Division III ranked programs – #1 Wartburg, #3 North Central, #5 Wisconsin-La Crosse, #7 Stevens Institute (New Jersey), and #9 Wabash.

Additionally, #11 UW-Whitewater, #13 Loras and #19 University of Chicago will be attending.

A year ago, the tournament saw two of its champions go on to be national champions – North Central’s Robbie Precin (133), Brett Kalinar of Stevens (149)

And the tournament had Zayren Terukina of Wartburg (141) and Kyle Hatch of Wabash (165) went on to national runner-up finishes and there were several other eventual All-Americans that participated.

Other tournaments to watch: Second-ranked Augsburg will be hosting its annual open tournament, and fourth-ranked John Carroll will be the headliner at the Olivet Comet Duals where ranked opponents Olivet, Ohio Northern and Wisconsin-Platteville will also participate.