2023-24 NAIA Women's Wrestling Rankings
101 pounds
The NAIA season is off and running! There’s plenty of data for rankings and here's the latest round. A few notes:
1. The Missouri Valley Open played heavily into this round of rankings, as it’s been the common sentiment for years that the MoVal is not only the toughest regular season college tournament, but also serves as a multi-division nationals.
2. Numerous tournaments played into this round, as a plethora of events hit in November. The results from the Waldorf Open, the Menlo Open, the Adrian Invite, the Viking Open, and Eagle Madness were all considered, to name a few.
3. Freshmen are starting to make some noise. Most notable to hit the rankings are #2 Alexsys Jacquez (University of St. Mary) at 109, #5 Ariana Martinez (Life) at 116, #3 Skylah Zimmerman (Southern Oregon) at 123, and #5 Kalila Shriver (Menlo) at 170.
4. New number ones! Doane’s Cristelle Rodriguez hit #1 at 123, Waipuilani Estrella-Beauchamp (Providence) is the new #1 at 130, Caitlyn Davis (Southern Oregon) earned a #1 ranking at 155 with a win over previous #1 Latifah McBryde (Life), and William Penn’s Ashley Lekas hits #1 at 170.
5. You’ll also see some familiar names at #1: Returning runner-up Erin Hikiji (Providence) stays #1 at 101, William Penn’s Mia Palumbo is still #1 at 109 after a title performance at the MoVal last weekend, 2-time national champion Carolina Moreno (Southern Oregon) moved up to 130 this year and holds the top spot, 2-time national champion Adaugo Nwachukwu (William Penn) moved up to 143 and stays at #1 there, and 2022 national champion Kelani Corbett (Missouri Valley) stays #1 at 191.
6. A worthy note: William Penn, a program that picked up the majority of top transfers from Iowa Wesleyan after it shut down in the offseason, holds three of the top spots with Palumbo, Nwachukwu, and Lekas all at #1. Providence and returning national champion Southern Oregon both have two number ones as Providence has top-ranked Hikiji and Estrella-Beauchamp, while SOU has top-ranked Moreno and Davis.
Is there a result we might have missed? A weight change we didn’t catch? Let us know by emailing us at rankings@flosports.tv and include NAIA women's rankings in the subject line.