Reaching the end of a two-week break in competition and poised for their first dual in nearly a full month, the sixth-ranked Presbyterian College women’s wrestling team returns to Templeton Gymnasium tomorrow night to face off with Mount Olive.
Looking every bit like the national-championship contender that their ranking suggests, the Blue Hose will take on a Trojan opponent who is unblemished in dual meetings thus far (3-0), proposing an early-season test for head coach Brian Vutianitis’ crew.
The action will begin at 7:00 PM on Tuesday, streamed live on ESPN+. This will be the second-ever matchup between PC and Mount Olive, as the Scotsmen smashed the Trojans in December of 2022 by a 37-10 clip.
Presbyterian has been phenomenal in tournament play during the first month of the season, winning 105 matches in two events. They’ve already claimed 12 first-place trophies and eight other silver nods, keeping their foot on the gas pedal following their highest preseason ranking in program history.
GAMEDAY INFORMATION – TUESDAY, DECEMBER 3
#6 Presbyterian (1-0) vs. Mount Olive (3-0)
WHERE / WHEN: Templeton Gymnasium | 7:00 PM
WATCH: ESPN+
LIVE RESULTS: Track Wrestling
SCOUTING THE OPPONENT
- Under the direction of head coach Dan Willis, Mount Olive comes back to PC after participating in the Blue Hose Challenge two weeks ago and delivering five podium finishes.
- The Trojans are unbeaten in dual play and have yet to break a sweat in those affairs. They blasted Bluefield State, Emory & Henry, and most recently Lincoln Memorial, claiming those victories by an average of 33 points per game.
- UMO has outscored their adversaries by a total difference of 99-25, earning three pins against the LMU Railsplitters just before Thanksgiving in a match that featured seven forfeits.
- Eight Mount Olive wrestlers went up against a PC grappler at the Presby tournament back on November 17, resulting in 12 matches between the two schools. The Blue Hose held the edge with seven wins and five losses when facing UMO participants in those brackets.
EIGHT TITLES AT BLUE HOSE CHALLENGE
- Presbyterian utterly dominated the self-hosted Blue Hose Challenge 15 days ago in Templeton, collecting a program-record eight individual championships and winning 56 matches altogether.
- Coach Vutianitis sent 22 wrestlers to the event, where 13 of them finished inside the top two of their class. 78 percent of PC’s wins occurred by either fall or technical, gathering 20 pins and 24 TF’s.
- Chloe Dearwester, Alyssa Mahan, Cassia Zammit, Carina Giangeruso, Paige Wehrmeister, May Cuyler, Lexi Fornshell, and Maria Aiono were the 1st-place winners on Sunday, a tournament where the title match was between two PC wrestlers against each other in three different brackets.
- In the first two-and-a-half weeks of the campaign, the combination of Zammit, Dearwester, Aiono, Cuyler, and Giangeruso have combined for a record of 41-2.
- Cuyler, Zammit, and Dearwester have all been perfect to this point, going 24-0 between them.
VICTORY ON THE YORKTOWN
- Presbyterian’s only other dual effort on the season was a banner day for the sport, headlining a multi-team event on the USS Yorktown battleship in Charleston against premier NAIA program Campbellsville.
- It was the first collegiate women’s dual to be held on an active military aircraft carrier, and the quality of the match was fitting for this surreal setting.
- PC came out on top by a score of 23-21 after seven lead changes and a technical fall in the last bout of the night, courtesy of Ella Beam (207).
- Beam knocked off her opponent in three minutes and 20 seconds to clinch the W in the final moments, collecting a 10-0 lead that signaled the tech.
RANKINGS UPDATE
- At present, the Blue Hose boast six nationally-ranked wrestlers in the latest poll, released on November 29. They are labeled below:
Alyssa Mahan | 6th in Class 124 | 6-1 Record | 2 Pins, 3 Tech’s
Cassia Zammit | 4th in Class 131 | 9-0 Record | 5 Pins, 2 Tech’s
Paige Wehrmeister | 4th in Class 138 | 7-2 Record | 1 Pin, 5 Tech’s
May Cuyler | 7th in Class 160 | 8-0 Record | 6 Pins, 2 Tech’s
Ella Beam | 9th in Class 207 | 4-3 Record | 1 Pin, 3 Tech’s
Maria Aiono | 10th in Class 207 | 8-1 Record | 4 Pins, 4 Tech’s
