10/28/2023
Hawkeye Women’s Wrestling 🔨’s; Felicity Taylor, Ella Schmit and Lilly Luft
Here are 3 of the best Iowa HS girls wrestlers that has ever been produced by the state of Iowa; Felicity Taylor, Ella Schmit and Lilly Luft… ALL Hawkeyes!
Write-ups on all 3!
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Lilly Luft; Charles City HS/Iowa Hawkeyes Women’s Wrestling
In 1983, Charles City HS crowned their first ever 3X Iowa HS State Wrestling Champion named Mark Sindlinger. Sindlinger won 3 titles from 1981-1983, all of them at the 3A Super Heavyweight (Unlimited) division. In 1999, Charles City produced their 2nd 3X Iowa HS State Wrestling Champion… This time it was a multi-sport athletic phenom named Drew Kelly who would wrestle and play baseball in college. 24 years after Drew Kelly won his 3rd state title and “30-40” years since Mark Sindlinger won his 3rd and 4th state title, another Charles City wrestler won their 3rd state title at 130 lbs in 2023! Her name is Lilly Luft and she is one of the best ever girls wrestlers that Iowa has ever produced at the HS level. She also was awarded the IBA Student Athlete Achievement Award at the tournament!
Lilly was a 4X Iowa HS State Placer in HS as well as being a 3X Champ. She finished 4-1-1-1 at the state tournament. She was coached by Robert Pittman. Lilly also placed 2nd at Junior Nationals in Fargo, ND a few months ago! This accolade is in addition to her also being a 16U All-American, a place-winner at the U17 world team trials and a Super 32 finalist!
2023 Iowa HS State Women’s Wrestling 130
1st Place - Lilly Luft of Charles City
2nd Place - Chloe Sanders of Vinton-Shellsburg
3rd Place - Lexy Petersen of Bettendorf
4th Place - Lyni Gusick of Center Point-Urbana
5th Place - Destiny Krum of East Buchanan
6th Place - Colbie Tenborg of Saydel
7th Place - Lilly Stough of Waverly-Shell Rock
8th Place - Claire Brown of Iowa City, City High
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Ella Schmit; Bettendorf HS/Iowa Hawkeyes Women’s Wrestling
Ella Schmit is a phenom female wrestler out of Bettendorf HS and now competing for the Iowa Hawkeyes women’s wrestling team. She is coming off an “off-season” in which she won the gold at the U20 2023 Pan-Am Games in Santiago, Chile at 65Kg!
In HS, competing for Bettendorf HS, Ella was a three-time IWCOA state champion, finishing off her senior year with a perfect 16-0 record with 13 pins. Her high school career record was 70-18 against boys and girls. She also qualified for the Iowa boys state tournament in 2021, becoming one of four girls in Iowa wrestling history to qualify at the time. She was also named 2022 Dan Gable Ms. Wrestler of the Year and was a 2X in HS with a 5th place finish at the 2021 Junior Women’s National Championship and placing at the Cadet Freestyle National Championships in 2019!
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Felicity Taylor; South Winn HS/McKendree/Iowa Hawkeyes (Decorah, IA)
When Felicity Taylor was in HS, I read/heard about how great of a wrestler she was on a routine basis… considering the fact that I am from SEI aka the opposite side of the state from where Felicity Taylor is from, that’s saying a lot actually! Felicity attended South Winneshiek HS aka South Winn… the land of state champs, Darren Kriener and Nick Schmelzer. SW just had a state runner-up last weekend with Collin Holm at 1A 138! Anyways, at the time it was difficult for me personally to understand what it was Felicity was doing that was creating such a buzz about her name since she is from the opposite side of the state as me and I didn’t actually witness it happening, but from what I gathered, she was an explosive, athletic, technical and fun to watch female wrestler who started taking these huge quick strides in her progression the moment she began training at Sebolt Wrestling Academy. She was also starting to just obliterate her way through the competition every time she was in a bracket where she competed against other girls. She was winning girls wrestling tournaments at the state and at the national level and seemed to do so with ease. She built a name to where when you had people like the IAwrestle guys discussing a future prestigious girls wrestling event on their show, she was always a “no brainer” pick to win her bracket. And she would. Felicity qualified for districts two times and was just one spot away from qualifying for the Iowa HS State Wrestling Tournament her Senior year, placing 3rd at districts at 1A 106. She lost her first round match against Brooks Meyer of Denver HS by the score of 14-11. She then major decisioned her next opponent in the consolations, but did not get a wrestleback, for Meyer lost in the finals… that close. The year before when she was a Junior, she placed 4th, but lost a 12-4 decision to a guy who was ranked #1 a lot of the time named Jaymus Wilson from Alburnett. She then lost for 3rd and 4th vs. a kid named Heath Moyer from North Linn. Want to know how good he was? Well, later on, Moyer would place 3rd at state! And he didn’t make it that year.. he placed 3rd ahead of Felicity. So yeah, she had some deep district brackets to contend with in HS. If she had multiple attempts to qualify wrestling the same guys, who knows, she might have qualified 75% of the time if she did it over, especially in a standard district bracket where the 3rd placers at districts weren’t future 3rd placers at state.
Felicity fell short of some of her goals on the HS scene, but lucky for her, she was riding a wave of a rather powerful girls wrestling movement at the time, put forth by the wrestling community. When it was time for her to look at colleges, there were actual options for her…many female wrestlers who came before her didn’t have these options. So of course she pursued that and to nobody’s surprise, she has flourished at the collegiate level. She began at McKendree University and while there, she locked down a smorgasbord of accolades including, but certainly not limited to; 2019 WCWA National Championship, 2019 Super 32 Placer, 2020 WCWC AA, 2021 NCWWC National Champion, 2nd at 2021 UWW Junior Nationals, 4th at 2020 Super 32 and was the 2022 NCWWC National runner-up. And this is where another significant event happened in her career… she transferred to become a part of the first assembled Iowa Hawkeyes girls wrestling team! And since she’s been at Iowa, she’s done great! So far she has won the Missouri Valley Open and the Soldier Salute and looked polished as ever in doing so. We are just now starting to see Felicity Taylor reach her potential in wrestling and it’s cool to see!
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