NAIA National Invite back in Jamestown this weekend
Mar. 8—JAMESTOWN — Harold Newman Arena will be flooded with athletes and families this weekend.
The second annual NAIA Women's Wrestling National Championships will be held at Harold Newman Arena on the University of Jamestown campus Mar. 8-9. The first round of wrestling is slated to start at 10 a.m. on Friday. The championship round will be held on Saturday beginning at 6 p.m.
"Everything is all set up and everything is looking good," University of Jamestown head women's wrestling coach Amy Golding said. "We've got teams in town now and they are working out. I am getting really excited."
Preliminary individual brackets were determined by a 10-member committee consisting of conference raters and oversight members from each of the five sponsoring conferences in the NAIA.
A total of 210 wrestlers were placed within the 10 weight classes. More than 35 teams will be represented.
The University of Jamestown has three athletes competing in the NAIA National Championships. Rayana Sahagun will be wrestling at 109 pounds, Allyssa Johnson will be competing at 155 pounds while Agatha Andrews will wrestle in the 191 pound bracket.
Golding said Sahagun placed seventh at the national invite back when she was a freshman.
"She is very dangerous in her wrestling style," Golding said of Sahagun. "She has very, very good defense and we've been working on pulling the trigger on some of her shots so when you combine those two things she becomes very, very dangerous. She's right at the top there with the other girls in the country. She could absolutely win it if she puts together a few good matches."
Sahagun will receive a bye in the first round on Friday as will Johnson.
"She is currently ranked eighth in the country and she's just had a phenomenal season," Golding said of Johnson. "She teched the girl in the conference finals, who is also nationally ranked, 10-0. She's very dominant and aggressive. She's constantly working. I would be surprised if she didn't make it to the finals."
Not to be counted out, Andrews will be looking to make a national title run in her final year with the Jimmies. Andrews was out the first half of the year due to injury but returned to the mat earlier this semester.
"When she came back she pinned the No. 3 girl in the country in two minutes and 20 seconds," Golding said. "She's also very dangerous. She's tough, she's fast and she's strong. She doesn't want to give up and I am just super proud of her."
All matches at the national championships will be streamed live via FloWrestling.com.
"Some weight classes are pretty deep," Golding said. "There are a lot of tough girls that will be fighting to just place."
Golding said while there will be more than 200 wrestlers competing this weekend, very few teams have a full team roster.
Five teams: Life University (Ga.), Menlo College (Calif.), University of Providence (Mont.), Southern Oregon, and Texas Wesleyan were slated to bring a full complement of 12 wrestlers to the championships. Grand View University (Iowa) and Oklahoma City University will travel 11 athletes. Former event champion, Campbellsville University (Ky.) and Missouri Baptist sport 10 wrestlers each.
The eventual team champion will be the team that scores the most points with the wrestlers that they have competing.
"Every year it's getting better and better with their technique, their confidence, their matches and their overall understanding of freestyle wrestling," Golding said of the quality of the event. "The more freestyle wrestlers we get the better the matches are. It will be pretty exciting."
