While children across the country are dressing up to go collect candy from various people’s homes, local businesses, etc., two local NAIA teams kicked off the 2024-25 season on Halloween night. This is the second full-season for the William Woods University wrestling teams and they have many new faces on the roster along with several returners from last year. Like with any new program, they experienced growing pains in their first year but also had a moderate form of success at both the men’s and women’s levels.
The Central Methodist Eagles are entering their 5th campaign and both their men’s and women’s teams are currently ranked in the top 25 in a couple different pre-season polls (Men are ranked 16th) and (Women are ranked 18th). They have several returning ranked wrestlers on both rosters who are eager to make a move on the Conference, Regional, and National scenes (including a few individual pre-season top 10).
It didn’t take long for the Eagles to showcase their experience and get the home crowd excited. During the women’s dual they outscored the Lady Owls during individual matches by scoring 48 points and only allowing 11 (which included 3 shutout tech falls). Going into the dual, the most anticipated match of the evening was at 124 lbs., where it featured two top 20 ranked wrestlers. However, CMU’s Allison Hynes was all business from start to finish and ended the match early via tech fall by a score of 12-2. Senior Emma Cole also looked solid with a series of takedowns in her season debut.
