WOMEN'S WRESTLING HAS STRONG SHOWING AT 2024 EAGLE DUALS

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Hitting the home mat for the first time this season, Avila women's wrestling wrapped up the 2024 Eagle Duals at Mabee Fieldhouse on Friday, taking on three of the area's top teams.

Avila, who are receiving votes in the latest NAIA Women's Wrestling Coaches' Top 20, were joined on campus by the NJCAA's No. 1 team in Indian Hills Community College, No. 10 Ottawa, No. 17 Wayland Baptist and Saint Mary, who are also receiving votes.  

The first home competition of the season was a big one for Avila, as the Eagles had some notable individual performances throughout the afternoon.

"I'm happy with our performance today," said Avila women's wrestling head coach Sarah Hilliard. "With as young of a team as we have, our goal is to get better each and every match and we did that today. It was great to be back at home after being on the road for the first two months of the season, we were really able to feed off of the environment."

Avila's No. 19-ranked Alexis Hatfield went 2-0 on the day, beating Alycia Perez from Indian Hills via fall in just 31 seconds and Alsafa Alkhalil of Ottawa via tech fall.

The other undefeated Avila wrestler on the afternoon was Audrina Houston in the 117-pound class. The freshman from Jefferson City won both of her matches via fall – first over Hinda Doucoure of IHCC and then against Nahim Arenas of WBU.

Markayla Lottie and Jaclyn Riedinger won their matches via fall over their two respective opponents from Wayland Baptist on the home mats at Mabee today.

Avila gave up three to four opens per found, but Hilliard was still happy with how her team fared:

"We faced a lot of adversity today with where we are in the calendar. We had to get creative with our lineup construction so that we could be competitive in team scoring, but we still did well overall."

A full list of individual and team results for the Eagle Duals can be found at TrackWrestling.com

Avila has a few weeks off before coming back to Mabee Fieldhouse on Sunday, Jan. 5 to take on York at 2 PM.