ST. CHARLES, Mo.— Mia Zuniga, Adriana Gomez, Lorianna Piestewa and Jayleen Sekona all finished as the runners-up in their respective weight classes and earned a trip to the first ever NCAA Women's Wrestling National Championships on Sunday here at the Region VI Championships in Lindenwood University's Hyland Arena.
 
Two other Mavericks in Hania Halverson and Gretchen Donally also fell just one win and place short of a national championship bid as each took fourth while helping the Mavs finish third in the final team standings with 113 points, just two shy of Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference rival Simon Fraser, which had three second place and three third place finishers.
 
National Wrestling Coaches Association Poll No. 2 McKendree had wrestlers win all ten weight classes to top the team scores with 199 ½ points.
 
The Mavs, ranked eighth nationally coming in, were in fourth place behind Fort Hays State after Saturday's portion of the tournament but passed the Tigers, who also qualified four wrestlers for the Mar. 6-7 national championships in Coralville, Iowa.  The Tigers tallied 106 ½ team points.
 
William Jewell was fifth in the team standings with 70 ½ points and qualified two wrestlers for nationals.  Chadron State was sixth with 67 points and will send three on to the national tournament.
 
The host Lions had one national qualifier and finished seventh out of 15 teams with 65 ½ points.
 
Zuniga, a 103-pound sophomore will be making a return trip to a national championship tournament after earning all-America honors with an eighth place finish at the NCWWC (National Collegiate Women's Wrestling Championships) while wrestling for King (Tenn.) University last season. 

She pinned third-seeded Julianna Alejandro of William Jewell in Sunday morning's semifinal round to secure a national bid before falling 10-0 to top-seeded and top-ranked Heather Crull of McKendree in the final.
 
Gomez, who also made the NCWWC event as a freshman in 2024 before redshirting last season, also claimed a 110-pound semifinal win on Sunday, defeating William Jewell's Emily Mendez, ranked seventh nationally, by a 3-0 scoreline.  However, Gomez was stopped by top-seeded and third-ranked Gabriele Tedesco in the final.
 
Piestewa, CMU's lone all-American in 2025, will also be heading back to a national tournament after earning a 11-0 technical fall win over Fort Hays State's Morgan Maschmann in the semifinals.  However, McKendree's second-seeded and seventh-ranked Shelby Moore, edged Piestewa, 4-2 in the final.  Piestewa was seeded first and ranked fifth nationally coming in to the weekend.
 
Sekona, a redshirt senior from Anchorage, Alaska, will have a chance at a fourth overall all-America honor in two weeks.  She was the second seed in the tournament and beat third-seeded and eighth-ranked Julia Richey of Simon Fraser for the third time season in the semifinals, 3-1 to secure a national bid.
 
That was Sekona's 99^th career victory.
 
However, top-seeded and top-ranked Tristan Kelly claimed a 10-0 win over the seventh-ranked and second-seeded Sekona in the final.
 
Halverson, seeded fifth, was able to work her way through the 131-pound consolation bracket with two Sunday wins but saw her run come to an end with a 12-7 loss to Chadron State's Piper Cadden in the third place bout.  Cadden was seeded fourth and had defeated CMU's Brooke McCurley twice in the closing weeks of the regular season.
 
Donally went 1-2 on Sunday, falling 10-0 to McKendree's Alexandra Szkotnicki, in the 145-pound semifinals before bouncing back with a pin of Texas Woman's Mackenzie Blue in the consolation semifinals.  However, Fort Hays State's Nichole Moore avenged a regular season loss with a 7-0 decision over Donally in the key third place bout, ending Donally's season with a 29-12 record.
 
Elsewhere, Sophia Cornish took fifth at 117 pounds while Maggie Smith finished sixth at 180 pounds.