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Iowa wrestling 2025 US Open preview - Women's Edition

by:Tanner Lafever•04/23/25•

TannerLafever

Kennedy Blades suplex
This week's field at 68 kilograms had better buckle up with Kennedy Blades entering the fold. (Photo Credit: PUNIT PARANJPE/AFP via Getty Images)

If you can believe it, I’m not exactly known for my brevity when it comes to my coverage of Iowa wrestling.

(Those of you familiar with my work here at Hawkeye Report are probably nodding – or perhaps sighing – right now.)

That admission aside, I’ve made the (I think) prudent decision to split up this latest preview for the US Open.

All it took for me to reach that conclusion was looking at a list of at least 23 past/present/future Hawkeyes who’ll be competing across four days and four separate divisions out in Las Vegas.

(Yeah, it’s a lot.)

And so, Part One of this preview series will be dedicated to the Iowa women – 11 of whom will compete this Thursday/Friday.

Among the group – including two graduates and a pair of incoming freshmen – are the following accolades:

  • An Olympic silver medalist
  • A World bronze medalist
  • Six age-level World team members (incl. three World titles and seven medals)
  • Six NCWWC champions (nine combined titles)

Seven of those Hawkeyes were a part of the 2024-25 roster:

Of the other four entries this week, 2024 graduates Felicity Taylor (53kg) and Marlynne Deede (76kg) are already familiar with this stage.

Meanwhile, Hawkeyes-to-be Isabella Gonzales (53kg) and Bella Williams (57kg) will compete for the first time at a US senior-level event.

Setting the stage

Now that you know who to watch from an Iowa perspective, here’s a bit more on the US Open format and its importance within the 2025 domestic freestyle calendar.

What does a first place finish this week mean?

For one, it means you’ve won a helluva wrestling tournament – the difficulty of which I’ll expound upon later as we dive further into the field(s) at each weight.

But secondly, a title earns any wrestler a spot in ‘Final X’ later this summer (June 14).

Final X is the event at which best-of-three finals are contested for each of the 10 spots on Team USA for the 2025 World Championships.

Two of the 20 Final X’ers have already been automatically determined – as first dibs go to any returning World/Olympic medalist so long as they’re competing at the same weight class (more on that in a bit.)

And one of those just happens to be a Hawkeye:

10 of the other spots will be determined by this week’s champions out in Las Vegas. After that, the remaining eight will go to winners of the World Team Trials Challenge tournament held in mid-May.

I realize that’s a wordy explanation of the system, so to simplify it, just look at things this way:

Win the US Open title and in roughly two months you’re guaranteed a best-of-three series to make Team USA.

(All of those things are obviously easier said than done, of course.)

The favorites

Iowa enters the US Open with a pair of sizable favorites – both number one seeds.

That distinction was earned through years of high-level performances, but especially within the past eight months.

For first-year Hawkeye Kennedy Blades, it encompassed an Olympic silver medal in Paris. She’d follow that up with an undefeated debut season at Iowa – winning 25/25 matches via early termination.

And for Kylie Welker – quite literally the program flag bearer since become its first-ever recruit in early 2022 – a Senior World bronze medal (plus a U23 gold) in Albania last October helped propel her through a second-consecutive national title season at Iowa.

She too went ran through the competition undefeated (27-0). She also won every match via bonus points – and did so without allowing a single point to her opponents.

The biggest intrigue with Blades this week may be how she performs down at 68 kilograms.

The 21-year-old competed at 76kg (~167.6 pounds) in the Olympics. However, she never threatened the upper end of that limit and subsequently wrestled at 160 pounds during the college season.

68kg (~150 pounds) will be a bigger cut. But if she can make weight without much issue there’s nobody in this field (and perhaps no one in the world) who can touch her when she’s at her best.

In her lone senior-level competition at 68 kilograms (with a 2kg allowance), Blades wrecked the field at February’s Zagreb Open.

As for Welker, her World medals came at 72kg – roughly nine pounds below what she’ll compete at this week (76kg).

She has lost previously to each of the other top two contenders in Vegas – reigning U23 World champ Yelena Makoyed and 2022 World teamer Dymond Guilford.

However, she’s largely dominated both series overall – including a 2-0 sweep of Makoyed at World team trials last fall.

Graduates to watch

Three other Hawkeyes competing in Las Vegas have officially concluded their Iowa careers.

For Felicity Taylor (53kg) and Marlynne Deede (76kg), both of theirs ended with 2024 individual national titles.

Meanwhile, Nanea Estrella (62kg) saw her time in an Iowa singlet come to an end last month in bittersweet fashion – finishing third at the national tournament.

Each member of the trio has experience at the senior level.

Taylor – seeded first at 53kg – was a Final X runner up and US Open champ in 2022. Both she and Deede competed at the Olympic Trials last year – each winning multiple matches in their respective brackets.

Felicity Taylor rolls to a 2022 US Open title.

It wouldn’t stun me if Taylor emerged victorious. 53kg is a solid, but young field compared to many in Vegas. And she’d only have to face one of the projected top contenders (Sage Mortimer/Katie Gomez) in a potential final.

Both Mortimer (U23 – 2024) and Gomez (U17 – 2021) are past age-group World champions.

For Deede – runner up at the 2022 US Open and 2023 Women’s Nationals – a title path is tougher to envision.

As the #5 seed, she’d face Welker in a potential all-Hawkeye semifinal were she to advance that far. The last time they wrestled was at Olympic Trials last April – a bout dominated by Welker (10-0).

Shifting attention toward Estrella, she was a 2022 US Open champ just like Taylor. That said, a tougher field and a new weight class (62kg) await her this time around.

Nanea Estrella was the 2022 US Open champ at 59 kilograms.

The best news is that as the #7 seed she’s on the opposite half of the bracket from Kayla Miracle.

Miracle, who trained with the Iowa women throughout 2023-24 is a back-to-back Olympian and two-time World silver medalist. This tournament is hers to win until proven otherwise, but Estrella can make some noise if she’s on her game.

Current Hawks

Four more wrestlers from the current Iowa roster will throw their hats in the ring out in Sin City.

To the best of my knowledge, it’ll be a first-ever senior-level event for headlock-loving Emily Frost. The #6 seed at 59kg has finished fifth or better at each of the past three U20 World team trials. But this week marks her first foray against the best of the best.

Whether Frost places or doesn’t this week, the experience will hopefully do wonders for her preparedness entering her junior season.

Things shouldn’t be nearly as eye-opening for a trio of her teammates, however.

Each of Ava Bayless (50kg), Emilie Gonzalez (50kg) and Brianna Gonzalez (53kg) competed at the 2024 Olympic Trials. All of them have experience at senior-level tournaments beyond that one as well.

50kg is a seriously deep field – especially with young talent – and 19-year-old phenom Audrey Jimenez stands above the rest.

A better target for Bayless/Gonzalez may be to get some payback against several other wrestlers in the bracket.

#4 Anaya Falcon (Life University) and #5 Heather Crull (high school senior) both defeated the Hawkeyes in recent months. The latter of those instances came with Crull prevailing in the U23 Women’s Nationals semifinals/finals.

Bayless has also traded wins with #3 Mia Palumbo (William Penn) in the past – though Palumbo has gotten the better of her of late.

As for Brianna Gonzalez (#7 at 53kg), she’s previously beaten four of the top six seeds in this field. That list includes former teammate, Felicity Taylor.

Brianna Gonzalez defeated Felicity Taylor 9-3 in their 2024 NCWWC Regional Final.

I’m fascinated to see how a potential quarterfinal goes against #2 Sage Mortimer. And truthfully, I kind of like the matchup for Gonzalez against the reigning U23 World champ.

Eyeing the future

Iowa’s last two entries at the US Open aren’t technically Hawkeyes just yet.

They are, however, both officially signed on to become such this fall.

Isabella Gonzales became the first member of Iowa’s 2025 recruiting class when she committed last November.

And Bella Williams became its fourth (and latest) addition when she signed on Monday.

Now, both elite high school preps are taking a crack at senior-level competition. And the fact that each earned a #8 seed at their respective weight class – 53kg for Gonzales, 57kg for Williams – lends further indication of how promising the Iowa careers ahead of them may be.

A few weeks ago, Williams finished runner up at Women’s Nationals in both the U20 and U23 divisions (at 59kg). Gonzales medically forfeited her fifth-place (U20) bout.

This time last year, both had earned spots on the U17 World team.

Needless to say, the competition that they’ll face in Vegas is going to ramp up another couple of notches.

Regardless of how they perform, Iowa is still getting a pair of young hammers in the two soon-to-be-Hawkeyes.

How to watch

The entirety of this week’s US Open will be streamed live on FloWrestling.

Brackets, mat assignments and statistics can be found at usabracketing.com (free account required).

As for the schedule, Senior Women’s Freestyle will run from Thursday through Friday.

*all times Central

Thursday, April 24th

12:00 – 4:00 p.m.

  • Preliminaries, quarterfinals and consolations

6:00 – 9:15 p.m.

  • Semifinals and consolations

Friday, April 25th

12:00 – 2:45 p.m.

  • Consolations, consolation semifinals and medal matches (3rd, 5th and 7th)

8:00 – 9:30 p.m.

  • Championship Finals

Short time

Alright, we’ve done it – a comprehensive yet totally succinct women’s half of this 2025 US Open preview.

(Fine, I’ll let you be the judge of that.)

Don’t forget to check back in tomorrow for Part Two, where I’ll examine a dozen wrestlers with Iowa ties on the men’s side of the competition.

As always, you can follow me on social media to get more immediate coverage of what’s happening on the mat. I’ll be chronicling all the action (women’s and men’s), and after it’s all said and done there’ll be a full recap of the event – possibly another two-parter.

Thanks so much for reading, be it this or any of the multitude of Iowa wrestling content that I’ve put out over the past few days (HOLY RECRUITING NEWS, am I right?)

But seriously, it never goes unappreciated. The passion of Iowa fans for all this stuff makes my job even easier than it already is.

So, thank you again, and enjoy the wrestling!

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