GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— Four Colorado Mesa University women's wrestlers will help make history as they compete in the inaugural NCAA Championships this weekend in Coralville, Iowa at Xtream Arena, located just across the Iowa River from the campus of the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa.
 
The tournament, the first NCAA sponsored championship in the sport, will begin at 10 a.m. CST (9 a.m. Mountain) on both Friday and Saturday and will have wall-to-wall coverage on ESPN+ with both a whip-around main broadcast as well as streams dedicated to each mat.
 
Two different sessions will be held each day.
 
Live results can will also be available on FloWrestling.
 
Tickets are available here.
 
Maverick Qualifiers
 
The Maverick qualifiers are Mia Zuniga (103 lbs.), Adriana Gomez (110), Lorianna Piestewa (124) and Jayleen Sekona (207).
 
All finished second in their respective weight classes at the NCAA Region VI Championships to earn their spot in the national championships.
 
Zuniga is 21-6 this season while Gomez is 29-12.  Piestewa is 24-6.  Sekona is 27-8.
 
Tournament Schedule & Format
 
Eighteen wrestlers in each of the ten weight classes will compete in this weekend's tournament, which will feature competition in four different sessions.
 
They earned the right by being the first, second or third place finishers at the six regional tournaments held two weeks ago.
 
The first session will include two pigtail matches in each weight class plus the first round matches for the other 14 wrestlers in each bracket will be contested on Friday morning, which begins at 10 a.m. CST (9 a.m. Mountain).
 
The second session will begin at 6 p.m. CST (5 p.m. Mountain) on Friday evening and will feature championship quarterfinals as well as two rounds of consolation, which will reduce the field to the eight placers and all-Americans in each weight class.
 
Those 80 total women will then contest the championship semifinals plus three additional rounds of consolation brackets to determine third through eighth place on Saturday morning at 10 a.m. CST (9 a.m. Mountain).
 
The final session, which will determine the ten individual champions will begin at 7 p.m. CST (6 p.m. Mountain).  That session will also re-air on ESPNU on Sunday, Mar. 7 at 9 p.m. Eastern (7 p.m. Mountain).
 
Returning All-Americans

Zuniga and Piestewa are both returning all-Americans from last year's National Collegiate Women's Wrestling  Championships, the predecessor to the official NCAA sponsorship this year.  Piestewa took third at 124 pounds while Zuniga took eighth at 103 pounds while wrestling for King University.
 
Sekona is a 3-time all-American throughout her career but missed much last season to due to injury and received a medical hardship waiver to return for a fifth year.
 
Gomez will be competing in her second national tournament.  She went 2-2 at the 2024 NCWWC Championships before redshirting last season.
 
In the Polls
 
The Mavericks will enter the NCAA Championships ranked seventh in the country according to the final National Wrestling Coaches Association's Rankings.  The Mavs were ranked eighth heading into the regional tournament weekend.
 
The team rankings are determined by a tournament power index, based on the individual seeds for the various weight classes.
 
After their Region VI domination, McKendree moved in to the top spot of the rankings with 123 points.  Iowa, which has been ranked No. 1 all season, slipped to second with 101 points.  North Central is third with 98 while Grand Valley State is fourth with 60.  Lehigh (34) and Presbyterian (28) are just ahead of the Mavs' count of 22 points.
 
King sits eighth in the rankings with 21 while Emmanuel (Ga.) and Northern Michigan are tied for ninth with 17.
 
Queens of the RMAC
 
Adrianna Gomez (110 pounds), Sophia Cornish (117) and Jayleen Sekona (207) all won RMAC titles the Jan. 31 conference tournament.  The Mavericks have now won a conference-leading 14 RMAC weight class championships in the 3-year history of the tournament out of a possible 30.
 
They were also named to the First Team All-RMAC squad that was officially announced later in February.  Jojo McDaniel, who took second behind Cornish at 117 pounds, and Celina Preston, the RMAC runner-up at 160 pounds, were also officially named as Second Team All-RMAC performers.
 
Century Chase
 
Maverick redshirt senior Jayleen Sekona went 2-1 to finish second at the regional tournament in in the process, raised her career record to 99-34, putting her just one win shy of becoming the first Maverick to ever reach the 100 win mark.
 
The 3-time all-American out of Anchorage, Alaska, broke the Mavericks' wins record during her RMAC Championship run and now has five more wins that former record holder Marissa Gallegos claimed.
 
Gallegos went 94-8 in her Maverick career, highlighted by a 2023 national championship and undefeated 28-0 season.  Gallegos is the only Maverick women's wrestler to have won a national title, a feat that Sekona and the three other Maverick qualifiers will try to duplicate this weekend.
 
She will enter the national tournament with a 27-8 record this season.
 
Quest for Four
 
Jayleen Sekona will also be looking to become just the third Maverick to ever earn all-America honors four times.
 
She placed third in the 191-pound bracket of the national tournament as a freshman in 2022 and took fifth a year later as a sophomore.  She then finished seventh in 2024 before missing out of last year's national tournament due to injury. 
 
Marissa Gallegos and Jennesis Martinez are the only other 4-time all-Americans.
 
Tracking down the Record
 
Adriana Gomez, who co-leads the Mavericks with 29 wins (29-12) and Sekona also have a shot at setting the Mavs' new single-season record, currently held by Claire DiCugno, who went 31-8 during the 2021-22 season.
 
Gomez will need two wins to tie the record and three to break.  Sekona would need to win four and either win the national title or make a deep run through the consolation bracket.
 
Both also have an even better chance of joining the 30-win club, that currently only has two members in DiCugno and Kaylee Lacy, who went 30-7 in the same year (2021-22).
 
Seeds & Match-Ups
 
Three of the four Mavericks in this weekend's national tournament are seeded.
 
Mia Zuniga leads the group and is seeded third at 103 pounds.  She has drawn Sacred Heart's Aaliyah Payne-Parris in the opening round and will face either No. 6 seed Trinity Pendergrass of Quincy or Chadron State's Brianna Vollendroff in the second round.  Zuniga pinned Vollendroff in the February 7 dual.
 
Sekona is seeded sixth at 207 pounds and will take on Katianna Martinez of Marymount in the opening round.  She would then wrestler either No. 3 seed Caroline Ward of North Central or Elizabeth Stricklin of D'Youville in the quarterfinals or consolation bracket.
 
Piestewa is seeded seventh at 124 pounds and will face either Mariah Mills of West Liberty or Sophie Bowers of Wartburg, who will begin the day with a pigtail match-up.  Piestewa scored a 10-0 technical fall win over Bowers during the Desert Duals in December but faced a different West Liberty wrestler (Sinne Van Balen) during the NWCA National Duals.
 
In her second match, Piestewa will either face No 2 seed Viirginia Foard of King or Lauren Nguyen of Sacred Heart.
 
Gomez is not seeded and has been drawn into a pigtail match against Mount Olive's Katie Simmons.  If she wins over Simmons, she would then take on No. 8 seed Afftynn Stusse of Wartburg in the second round.  Stusse won by pin at the 4:35 mark of their previous match-up during the Desert Duals.  Gomez has not met up with Simmons this season.

The full tournament brackets can be seen here.

NCAA.com also recently aired a selection show with bracket breakdown and analysis.
 
Ten-Win Seasons
 
With their 11 dual wins this season, the Mavericks reached double figures for the fourth straight season.
 
They went 14-2 in 2022-23, 11-5 in 2023-24 and 13-3 last year before posting their 11-8 record this season.  The Mavericks' schedule this season this season was quite challenging and saw the Mavs take on eight different nationally-ranked opponents a combined nine times. 
They are now 10-8 heading in to this Saturday's dual against Chadron State.
 
Twenty times Four
 
Although she fell short of a national tournament berth Celina Preston became the first Maverick to ever record 20 or more wins in four consecutive seasons.  Preston went 23-13 this season and finished her career with 87 wins, tied for third most along with 4-time All-American Jennesis Martinez in CMU history.
 
Only Jalyleen Sekona, currently with 99, and Marissa Gallegos, had 94, were more victorious.
 
Home Mat Dominance
 
The Mavericks 34-12 win over Chadron State allowed the Mavs to complete a perfect home season.  The Mavs went 4-0 in official home duals this season and are now 17-1 all-time in home duals in this their eighth season with a program.
 
They have won 17 consecutive times inside Brownson Arena.  The Mavs' only home dual loss came on Oct. 27, 2018, the very first day of the program's history to then NAIA No. 1 Wayland Baptist.
 
Colorado Mesa turns 100
 
The CMU Century Celebration stands as the cornerstone of Colorado Mesa University's year-long centennial celebration. This ambitious initiative unites our community in honoring a rich heritage while boldly envisioning the next hundred years of academic excellence.
 
Led by the Steering Committee and six specialized sub-committees, we're orchestrating a transformative experience that will resonate through generations. Each committee brings unique expertise to create an unforgettable commemoration of our past, present and future.
 
To learn more about Colorado Mesa's 100-year celebration, visit cmucentury.com.
 
Up Next
 
This weekend's tournament will conclude the Mavericks' eighth season, which has included an 11-8 dual record, a perfect 4-0 home mark, a seventh place finish at the NWCA National Duals, a second place finish at the RMAC Championships and in the regular season standings as well as a third place finish at the NCAA Region VI Championships.

Some Mavericks will continue to wrestle in various USA Wrestling and international events throughout the spring and summer months.