2022 Domestic Women's Freestyle Rankings

50 kilograms

1. Emma Bruntil shocked the college wrestling world when she left back-to-back national champ McKendree, where she won two individual national titles, for a new chapter in her life. Since then, she’s been busy on the USAW international scene, including a title and win over #1 Forrest Molinari in January at the prestigious Yariguin Grand Prix tournament in Krasnoyarsk, Russia. Then in February, Molinari flipped the script at the Yasar Dogu in Turkey, beating Bruntil by fall in the quarterfinals. With the win, Molinari holds the #1 spot at 65 kg as this new rivalry has left the station. With the title at the Yariguin, Bruntil became only the seventh U.S. woman in history to win the event.

2. College results played heavily into this round. Both the NAIA and NCAA held their national invites since we released the last ranking. These national championship events give us a lot of data for Senior rankings, as they provide plenty of matchups, breakout performances, and accolades to help us set the grid. 

3. There’s lots of movement between weights as it appears women are settling into their new or old weight classes in prep for the coming month, which is loaded with big events–the U.S. Open, Women’s Nationals, and Senior Nationals.

4. We had to move a significant number of women off the list into “inactive” status. This took some big names out–some temporarily, and some, perhaps, permanently. It’s unclear who’s retired and who is simply on break. As we all know, Adeline Gray is having a baby. Katherine Shai is too! All the best to them. We based our decisions on putting someone on inactive status on 1) whether they were entered in the U.S. Open, and 2) how long it’s been since they last wrestled. We also became privy to info about some that are out to due surgery and/or injury recovery.

5. Keep in mind, the ranking criteria is based, when possible, on head-to-head matchups, common opponents, strength of weight class, and body of work. This comes into play, for example, when figuring out where to put NCAA and NAIA wrestlers in the Senior WFS Rankings. In some weight classes, an NAIA national champion, for example, might not be as high in the rankings, as an NCAA All-American if the weight class was deeper in the NCAA. The opposite may also be true where an NAIA weight class might be deeper than the NCAA.