Women’s Wrestling Makes Its Debut

The first dual meet win in the history of the Muhlenberg women’s wrestling program was already in the bag. The Mules led Felician University 24-15 with only the 207-pound weight class to go. They could have forfeited the bout and still won 24-20.

But that wasn’t the way they played it. Head Coach Travis Spencer had previously talked to Kelsey Gelb ’28, the team’s best wrestler, about the possibility of wrestling in the final bout if the outcome of the match depended on it. 

Since it didn’t, Spencer gave her the option to sit out, but Gelb, who normally competes in the 160-pound weight class, decided to take the mat against an opponent who outweighed her by more than 40 pounds.  

Spencer adopted “Let’s G(r)o!” as the team’s unofficial slogan shortly after getting hired to start the program two years ago, and much of the growth has been tangible: In the program’s first bout ever, at the Millersville Open, Alessandra Rodriguez ’28 pinned an opponent from Delaware Valley University. Penelope Schneider ’25, a former Muhlenberg soccer player who had never wrestled competitively, also won her first bout moments later. Rodriguez and Gelb both earned regional rankings and placed at multiple tournaments. 

Then there was that landmark first dual win against Felician, and a dramatic win against Misericordia University, another first-year program, in the Mules’ first home dual meet. With the score tied 14-14, Karla Lazaro ’28 pinned her opponent in the final bout for a 19-14 victory.

Some things have been less quantifiable.

“We’re working with a young team, with some team members who don’t have a lot of freestyle experience, literally teaching them from the ground up,” says Spencer. “To see where that progress has been, I’m certainly happy about all of that.”

“This is a marathon. This isn’t a sprint,” he says. “I feel really good about the potential of recruits to come in this year and even next year. No one ever sees the ugly concrete foundation of a house. They see the beautiful windows and panels, but we’re building a foundation this year.”

There is certainly a growing pool of recruits to draw from, particularly as the Mules look to fill in the lower weight classes, where they had to forfeit this season. Over the past decade, the number of high school girls’ teams quadrupled nationally, and the number of girls wrestling in high school quintupled to more than 50,000, according to figures from the National Federation of State High School Associations.

Future Mules will have the added incentive of being able to compete for an NCAA championship. The Muhlenberg program, and all of women’s wrestling, got a big boost in January when the NCAA voted to make women’s wrestling its 91st championship sport. The first NCAA women’s wrestling championship is scheduled to take place in 2026.

So what happened in that bout between Gelb and her much heavier opponent? Gelb was taken down to her back in the first 10 seconds. But after repositioning herself, Gelb reversed her opponent and pinned her — one of 11 pins she recorded in the first 20 bouts of her collegiate career. 

 Sometimes dreaming big pays off.

“We’re trying to build something here that will last a long time,” says Spencer. “This is not to be a one-year wonder. We’re going to go through ups and downs as any team or group will go through, but we’re going to get there.”