Women's Wrestling Debuts at NAIA Championships

Doane Women's Wrestling started competition in their first appearance at the NAIA National Championships and after the first day of the action, the Tigers found themselves in 16th place overall. The Tigers had two wrestlers advance to Saturday's action, moving into the All-American rounds.

Cristelle Rodriguez was the first Tiger to take the mat at 130 in the championship meet and walked away with a 10-0 tech fall win. She added another tech fall win, 10-0, in the second round and capped her day with an 8-0 win over 5-seed Andrea Schlabach of Grand View (Iowa) in the quarterfinals. Rodriguez will take on top-seed Lexie Basham of Texas Wesleyan on Saturday morning in the semifinals.

Karina Vang started out her day against top-seed Ira Navarro of Providence (Mont.) and dropped a 10-0 decision. She bounced back by eliminating a pair of Midland (Neb.) wrestlers. She defeated Zoe Omura, 10-0, and 6-seed Esther Walker, 10-0. Vang will face 12-seed Tianna Fernandez of Menlo on Saturday.

Aevri Ciha opened with a pin (1:24) in her opening match at 143. She then took on top-seed Alexis Gomez of Grand View, dropping the match, 10-0. She took on 6-seed Liv Wieber of Eastern Oregon in her next match. After a scoreless two minutes, action picked up in the final minute of the opening period with Ciha recording a takedown but Wieber was able to roll through with an arm locked to move Ciha to her back and get a pin.

Lamia Benn dropped her opening match with 7-seed Katelyn Lewis of Brewton Parker (Ga.) by pin (0:49). In the consolation bracket of 170, she dropped her second match to 9-seed Lilly El-Masri of Vanguard by pin (2:05).

Action resumes on Saturday at 10 AM.