2025 Women's Wrestling Preview: Blue Streaks Set High Expectations Going Into 2025-2026 Campaign

11/5/2025 11:10:00 AM | By: Anthony Markello, Staff Writer

Women's Wrestling Has High Hopes For 2025-2026 Season

UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS - The John Carroll Women's Wrestling team looks to build off their promising first two years as a program in the 2025-26 season. Led by Head Coach Mark Hawald, the Blue Streaks are eager to prove what they can do.

John Carroll's switch to the NCAC posed a challenge for the women's wrestling program, as JCU is the only NCAC school with a team. This led to the Blue Streaks joining the Alleghany Mountain Collegiate Conference (AMCC) as an affiliate member for women's wrestling. The 2025-26 season will mark the first season of competition for the women's wrestling squad in the new conference, where they'll compete against the likes of Alfred State, Buffalo State, Hiram, Penn State Altoona, and Elmira in the new look conference.

Amidst all the offseason changes, Coach Hawald still has his hopes set high.

"Our goals are to work towards having individuals qualify for the first ever NCAA Women's Wrestling National Championship in March," noted Hawald.

"We also have our sights on winning both the dual meet and tournament championship in the AMCC."

In order to endure such success, the Blue Streaks will have to lean on the leadership and experience of their first true batch of upperclassmen.

"We are excited to continue to build and grow in our third year… we finally have some upperclassmen with four juniors on the team and they provide some experience and leadership."

With two seasons under the program's belt, the squad can focus less on filling a roster and more on developing skilled wrestlers, as well as competing at a high level.
"The first two seasons were challenging as we often focused more on putting together a full line-up than anything else," said Hawald.

"Now we are focused on development into high caliber wrestlers with championship habits."

With Coach Hawald, chasing championships seems to be a common theme for the upcoming season. In order to do so, the squad will need high level play from their star returners, including junior Jordan Palmer and sophomore Emily Leeseberg.

"Jordan Palmer was a national qualifier in the first season (2024) and Emily Leeseberg was a regional placer last season."

Coming off strong seasons last year, there's no doubt Palmer and Leeseberg will be counted on for more stellar play in the 2025-26 season.

The Blue Streaks season kicked off on Sunday, November 2nd where they took on a variety of schools in the JCU Round Robin. Perhaps the bracket the Blue Streaks enjoyed the most success was the 145, where Delilah Gallegos took home first place, and fellow Blue Streak Leslie Sullivan grabbed second. The two promising first years delivered fantastic results in their first glimpse of collegiate action.

John Carroll will travel to Tiffin, Ohio for their next outing when they take on the Heidelberg Student Princes on Wednesday, November 5 at 7:30 pm.

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