The purpose of establishing a program at any level of college athletics is to achieve consistent, repeated success year after year. Showing the rest of the respected sport that one year of winning isn’t a fluke but rather a stepping stone in steering a program in the right direction.
This task was assigned to Iowa women’s wrestling head coach Clarissa Chun entering the second season of her young career — proving to the country the program she leads isn’t intimidated by the so-called “powerhouses” of the sport.
The immensely successful 2023-24 campaign was one that Chun couldn’t even script herself.
In pure and utter dominant fashion, Iowa carved out a lane and showed the entire collegiate landscape why they deserved to be there. The Hawkeyes went 16-0 in dual competitions, won both the NWCA Duals and NCWWC National Championship titles, and had six individual national champions as well as 12 All-Americans.
Chun completed this storybook season by winning the 2024 USA Wrestling Coach of the Year, NCWWC, and The Open Mat, respectively.
But the biggest question heading into the 2024-25 season was not what Iowa did in the past, but how the Hawkeyes could retain their championship success moving forward.
Chun was immediately handicapped by a slew of impactful wrestlers departing the program. National champions Felicity Taylor, 116 pounds, and Marlynne Deede, 155 pounds, would leave the team after running out of eligibility, while All-American Bella Mir, 155 pounds, decided to transfer to North Central College just months before the season started.
Chun countered this by doing some work in the transfer portal and bringing in a talented class of freshmen.
The biggest additions were securing Macey Kilty and Kennedy Blades. Coming in at the 145- and 160- pound weight classes, both Kilty and Blades had championship or bust hopes for the Hawkeyes after proving themselves at the international level years prior.
Seven new first-year students joined the team with the projection to learn and compete against some of the more established wrestlers in the program.
With some new faces on the team, Iowa entered the season with expectations to repeat as the NCWWC national champion, despite being ranked No. 2 in the NWCA preseason rankings behind King University.
Going in with a little chip on their shoulder, the Hawkeye team slowly worked its way through the regular season, finding themselves 9-0 entering the NWCA Dual Championships at the year’s halfway point.
Iowa made a statement in the dual championships despite the glaring increase in competition. In the same event last season, the Hawkeyes used a passivity point from North Central College to secure the 21-20 victory and take home first place.
This year, it was a different story. After winning the previous three matches by a combined score of 110-22, the Hawkeyes were pitted against North Central once again. This time around, the match was completely different. Iowa dominated the Cardinals from the jump, securing a 28-13 victory and its second consecutive national dual championship.
This performance foreshadowed what would come for the rest of the season.
Iowa would win their remaining six dual matches, place five champions in the Grand View Open, and win the NCWWC Region VII Championships — earning a second consecutive NCWWC National Championship berth while winning all 10 weight classes.
The Hawkeyes performance in the national championships had very similar results as the year prior: a team title, three individual national champions, and 15 All-Americans. But this time around, Iowa dominated the competition, pulling away from the rest of the teams and showing a clear difference in talent and skill.
Even with fewer individual champions, Iowa topped second-place North Central by 30 points and separated itself from the other teams in the field.
Regardless of people’s opinions on whether Iowa did even better than last year, Chun did the best thing possible for her program — show everyone that year one wasn’t just beginner’s luck, but a warning for the rest of the sport.