USA Senior Nationals Preview: Women's Freestyle
Photo by ERNESTO BENAVIDES/AFP via Getty Images
In the absence of the typical Olympic or World championship qualifications, USA Wrestling has decided to hold a national championship tournament, which will take place this weekend in Coralville, Iowa. Since this event does not affect qualification for next year’s Olympic Trials, the fields are down from Senior Nationals or US Opens of the past, but there are still some top competitors at every weight and plenty of interesting up-and-comers. The Olympics also tends to bring all sorts of people out of the woodwork, as wrestlers who haven’t competed in years suddenly re-emerge for one last go-round.
Women’s freestyle has far fewer entries than men’s freestyle or even Greco, which I would mainly attribute to the slower reopening of sports at the lower-division colleges that sponsor women’s wrestling as compared to the DI institutions where most of the top men train. Luckily, the shortage is more at the bottom of the field than the top; every weight has a serious world team contender, and there are multiple world medalists in the tournament.
My Out of the Woodwork award goes to Jackie Surber-Cataline at 62 kg. She was a contender in the previous Olympic cycle, but stepped away from competing after not making the team. She returned for 2019 Senior Nationals last December, which we expected to be one of the final events before Olympic Trials in April 2020. Alyssa Lampe and Katherine Shai were also in the field in 2016 and returned in 2019, and they deserve honorable mention status here. What sets Cataline apart, though, is that she had last competed at 75 kg; at Senior Nationals she went 68, and now she’s all the way down to 62.
Now let’s get to the weight-by-weight breakdowns and top-three picks.
50 kg
This field is headlined by Alyssa Lampe, a 2013 world bronze medalist who has come back into the fold after a post-2016 hiatus. She buzzsawed through a 2019 Senior Nationals bracket that included Amy Fearnside, Emily Shilson, and Victoria Anthony and is a heavy favorite here. The other most notable names are Fearnside and Shilson, who had a tight match for 3rd place at Senior Nationals. They will most likely be the 2 and 3 seeds, which would set them up for a rematch in the semis. Shilson has improved in the past year, as we saw in her dominant win over Charlotte Fowler at Beat the Streets a few weeks ago. Fowler is also in this bracket, as well as WCWA All-Americans like Arellys Valdes and Junette Caldera and a few wrestlers making their senior-level debuts. There should be some good matches in the early rounds here, and a good measuring stick for the up-and-comers.
Picks: Lampe, Shilson, Fearnside
53 kg
Our next weight doesn’t have as many competitors, but the top group is even stronger than at 50. 2018 world silver medalist Sarah Hildebrandt is back in action, and she’ll probably win this bracket handily. Hildebrandt had said she wanted to wrestle down at 50 kg for the Olympics and tore through the Pan-Am qualifying tournament in March to secure a spot in the Tokyo field for Team USA. I suspect she simply doesn’t want to cut as much weight for a tune-up event like this, but she’s the best in the country at either 50 or 53. Katherine Shai made it to Final X against Hildebrandt last year, and she’s probably the next best in this group. 2019 Senior Nationals placers Alisha Howk and Ronna Heaton are also solid and should have a good match for third place here; Howk beat Heaton 6-4 last year.
Picks: Hildebrandt, Shai, Howk
57 kg
Thanks to the Olympic year condensing the middle of the weight class distribution, this is one of the deepest weights of the tournament. Both of last year’s Final X competitors, Alli Ragan and Lauren Louive, are entered and should be the top two here. Ragan is a world silver medalist, but she’ll have her hands full making the team in 2021 over Jenna Burkert coming down from 59 and a resurgent Helen Maroulis. The rest of the competitors are mostly younger wrestlers who will need some time before they’re ready to contend at the senior level. Most notable is Xochitl Mota-Pettis, who won a few matches at 2019 Senior Nationals.
Picks: Ragan, Louive, Mota-Pettis
62 kg
Another small field, but once again the top is fairly strong. If no one registers late, it will be held as a round robin, which means we’ll get to see all the top contenders wrestle each other. The most credentialed on the senior level is Jackie Surber-Cataline, who makes her 62 kg debut (although this tournament has a 2-kg allowance). Her main contenders will be Jennifer Page and Macey Kilty. Page finished fifth at 2019 Senior Nationals, and last month had a come-from-behind win over Desiree Zavala at the NLWC Rofin event. Kilty has won a medal at the cadet, junior, and U23 levels and is one of the best leg attackers in the country. She sometimes has defensive lapses and gives up big points, but I expect those to fade away as she gains experience. She beat Page 5-4 last time out, and I expect her to widen the gap this time. Surber-Cataline is a bit of a wild card because she doesn’t have any matches against these wrestlers, but I think her physicality will be a problem. She holds position well, and I don’t think Page will get much going against her. Kilty, on the other hand, has the ability to get to angles for her leg attacks and finish cleanly, and I think she’s better suited to taking out Cataline.
Picks: Kilty, Surber-Cataline, Page
68 kg
This field is also fairly desolate, with just five competitors at the time of this writing. It’s a good bunch, though, with three 2019 Senior Nationals placers, and another one that I’d enjoy seeing as a round robin. At the top of the heap is Forrest Molinari, who won it last year and was a world team member in 2018 and 2019 down at 65. She turned heads by pinning or teching all four opponents at 2019 Senior Nationals, but didn’t wrestle any of this year’s entrants. Alexandria Glaude is coming off a disappointing performance at Beat the Streets, but I think she’ll be sharper with more matches as the rust wears off. Also hoping for a rebound is Rachel Watters, who made a national team at 72 kg but then failed to place at Senior Nationals when she came down to 68. Skylar Grote is also on the rise, and the Watters-Grote match could be the most competitive one at the weight.
Picks: Molinari, Glaude, Watters
76
Surprisingly, this looks like one of the best weight classes of the tournament. Adeline Gray, winner of the last two world championships, turned heads when she entered the tournament on Monday. Also in the field is her sister Geneva, who coaches at Bacone College. 2019 Senior Nationals champion Precious Bell is still on the upslope of her career, and this tournament will be a good measuring stick for her. Her opponent in the final last year was Dymond Guilford, who actually pinned Bell in the WCWA final and will surely be looking to reclaim the series lead at this tournament. Victoria Francis, about whom I wrote in my Beat the Streets preview, is also a big name here. After making the 2019 world team at 72 kg, she went down to the Olympic weight of 68 and had some success, but was part of Molinari’s pin train. I’m not sure if she’s back up to 76 just for this tournament or whether it’s a statement of intent for 2021, but she’s a force at either weight. The early rounds will most likely be one-sided, as the other competitors don’t have the skill, experience, or physicality of these top four.
Picks: A. Gray, Francis, Bell