Mountaineers women's wrestling is about to take the mat

The Western Colorado University Mountaineers women’s wrestling team will make its debut in the upcoming 2026/27 academic year. An official announcement of the new program was released on May 13, 2025, by Western Colorado President Brad Baca and then Athletics Director Miles Van Hee. The addition of women's wrestling as an NCAA Division II and Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference varsity sport will increase the university athletics department’s total number of varsity sports to 14 and total women’s sports offerings to eight. Since the announcement, the athletics department hired a head coach, Taylor Summers, who spent the entirety of the 2025/26 academic year recruiting the athletes and building the new team. 

Summers has signed 37 total student-athletes and hired assistant coach Waipu'ilani Estrella-Beauchamp for the inaugural fall season of Mountaineer women’s wrestling. The girls come from various locales around the country, most hailing from the western half of the United States. 

“Women’s wrestling was a no-brainer when it came to adding another sport to Western athletics,” said Assistant Athletics Director for Communications Gregg Petcoff. “The community is a very supportive wrestling community. With the long-term success of the men’s wrestling program, it made so much sense to use the facilities that we already had in place to double up and add women's wrestling to the program.” 

The Paul Wright gym and Tracy Borah mat room were already set up to receive and support the new team’s development. 

“We already had a practice space. We already had the locker room and the gym, we even had the space where the head coach’s office would go,” Petcoff said.

Petcoff explained that women’s wrestling is on the rise as an emerging sport nationally. “It just rocketed through emerging sport status and became an NCAA championship sport relatively quickly. The excitement is national, it's not just in Gunnison,” he said. 

Creating this program puts the Western athletics department on the cutting edge of women’s wrestling. The first wave of women Mountaineer wrestlers will have the opportunity of getting into the sport right as it is breaking onto the collegiate scene and is on the precipice of unprecedented popularity.

Last year, the NCAA held its first women’s wrestling championship. The competition was an ‘all division’ with schools of all sizes competing against one another. The first winner of the women’s championship ended up being a D2 school—McKendree, who beat out D1 competitor University of Iowa in the finals. This D2 win over a larger D1 school is an example of the opportunity a D2 school like Western has at the national level in the sport, and new head coach Taylor Summers plans on capitalizing on that momentum and opportunity with excitement.

“It’s exciting to me because I want to build the best team in the country,” Summers said. “I think we have an amazing group of girls and really high character kids.”

Summers has a long personal history with wrestling, both as an athlete and a coach. He most recently is returning to Western from his position as head coach at Chadron State in Nebraska, his alma mater. Summers previously spent five years at Western as the assistant coach for the men’s wrestling team. Collectively throughout the year he spent coaching at Chadron State and his five years at Western, he has coached both men’s and women’s wrestling. 

“I love interacting and working with the girls, helping them learn all the same values that I learned…like discipline, hard work and character…I think it’s beautiful that we can teach our young women this,” Summers said. 

Both Summers and Petcoff commented on how they anticipate the women’s wrestling program will be well received, based on the proven popularity and consistent spectator turnout the men’s program has had in the past from the community. 

“People love wrestling in Gunnison, in my opinion,” Summers said. “In my experience, Gunnison is a place that appreciates blue collar…kids that work hard and people that work hard. I think wrestling preaches that a lot. Every kid I’ve coached, any room that they’re in they want to be the hardest worker there.”

Although the program is in its infancy, Petcoff says it already looks like it's becoming perhaps a destination for high school girls’ wrestling. 

“Gunnison is a unique place,” Petcoff said. “The athletes come [to WCU] for Gunnison, for the outdoors and the education.”

Keagan Edwards, an athlete from Illinois, was the first potential recruit that Petcoff brought to the campus to show around. After touring the campus and facilities, Edwards was pleased with both the school and the new program’s potential. Head coach Summers later ended up signing her to the team. 

“An engineering program was one of Edwards’ personal requirements for which school she chose, in addition to wrestling at the collegiate level,” Petcoff said. “The education and what Western offers, what people are doing as soon as they're graduating—that is what is standing out to our [athletic] recruits, and not just for women’s wrestling.”

Another enticing factor for new recruits has been the opportunity to co-create, shape and set the standard for the burgeoning program. 

“They’re getting to create the ground floor of Mountaineer women’s wrestling,” Petcoff said. “They are going to set the standard and the culture of what it means to be a Mountaineer wrestler.”

From the way the team has shaped up and the positive response of incoming student-athletes, Petcoff is predicting that it’s already looking like the women’s wrestling program at Western is turning into a desirable destination for female high school wrestlers. 

Summers said to keep an eye out for Gunnison local Romie Uhrig, an incoming freshman who already has quite the reputation both on the community and state levels for her high school wrestling career. 

The Mountaineer women’s wrestlers will officially have their inaugural meet on Thursday, Oct. 29 in the Paul Wright gym. Both the women's and men’s teams will hold their Crimson and Slate Intrasquad Dual in which teammates will face off against one another. The meet is open to the public.

According to Petcoff, these meets have typically been very well attended in the past for the men’s team. 

“I encourage anyone who’s not super familiar with [women’s] wrestling or anything to come out and catch a glimpse of our team and what it’s all about,” Summers said. 

The opportunity to witness a new program, the development of many new rising star athletes, and history in the making is about to be underway. 

“Western is getting on-board at the beginning of this emerging sport,” Petcoff said. “We answered the call when it came.”

(Gia Wright can be contacted at 970-641-1414 or jwright@orourkemediagroup.com.)