Augustana, Aurora and MacMurray are the latest program changes in Illinois

Female wrestling in Illinois has made some loud noises across the wrestling community this year. And, in the last few weeks, the state just gained two more NCAA DIII women’s wrestling programs.

Only a five hour drive apart, Aurora University and Augustana College announced the addition of women’s wrestling programs within a week of each other. The programs in Aurora and Rock Island provide more options for student-athletes across the nation.

Aurora is among only a handful of collegiate women’s wrestling programs in close proximity to a large metropolitan area. It’s similar to North Central in distance to Downtown Chicago at approximately 45 minutes. Two other programs near metropolitan areas include Augsburg University in Minneapolis, and Life University that’s just a quick 30 minutes from Atlanta.

Illinois powerhouse McKendree University won the first-ever NCAA member exclusive national championships this spring, the National Collegiate Women’s Wrestling Championships, and the first-year program at North Central had five All-Americans of their own.

The state has four opportunities for girls to wrestle in college, but high school girls wrestling is not sanctioned in Illinois.

The National Federation of State High School Associations bookmarked Illinois girls wrestling at 696 high school participants in 2019, but a facebook post by Illinois Girls Wrestling from January approximated that number to be 853—a number much higher than other states, such as Montana or Missouri, had prior to sanctioning.

Unfortunately there is a caveat to this good news: Illinois will be losing the long-standing program at MacMurray College. MacMurray announced the closure of the entire institution at the conclusion of this spring semester. President Dr. Beverly Rodgers stated that ongoing financial strains are cause for the closure, and that it is not solely related to the coronavirus pandemic.

Transition Wrestling is an independent women’s wrestling news publication.

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