Final X in Ohio, two college coaching hires, and a wrestling A to Z

Kennedy Blades and Dymond Guilford took the last two women's freestyle places on the U.S. Senior World Team at Final X on September 25, at Hilliard Davidson High School in Hilliard, Ohio. Both series had first been scheduled for June 19 at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. With a men's freestyle series settled the same night, the 30-athlete U.S. team for the Senior World Championships is complete.

At 68 kg, about 150 pounds, Bella Mir withdrew from the Final X series before the opening session, and Blades won it by two forfeits, USA Wrestling reported on themat.com. Blades, the 2024 Olympic silver medalist, goes back to the Senior World Championships for a second straight year after taking bronze in Zagreb in 2025: /wrestlers/kennedy-blades. Mir reached Final X by winning the U.S. Open at 68 kg in April. She keeps the No. 2 ranking on the 2026-27 U.S. Senior National Team, and she will wrestle for the U.S. at the U23 World Championships in Las Vegas: /wrestlers/bella-mir.

In the 76 kg Final X series, Guilford, of Colorado Springs, beat Kylie Welker of Iowa City two matches to one. Welker won the first match 4-1. Guilford won the second 3-2 and the third 7-1, with three takedowns in the second period of the last one. It is Guilford's second Senior World Team, after 2022, the year she also won U23 World silver. Welker, a two-time World bronze medalist, has the series in her record at /wrestlers/kylie-welker.

Welker, the U23 World champion in 2024 and 2025, is the U.S. entry at 76 kg at this year's U23 World Championships. United World Wrestling lists the championships for October 12 to 18 in Las Vegas, and USA Wrestling puts women's freestyle at the Thomas & Mack Center October 14 to 16. The 50, 55, 59, 68 and 76 kg medal matches are Thursday, October 15. The 53, 57, 62, 65 and 72 kg medal matches are Friday, October 16, both nights from 6 p.m. local time. The Senior World Championships follow in Astana, Kazakhstan, October 24 to November 1. Both are on the calendar at /events.

Two Pennsylvania college programs added coaches. Alvernia, in NCAA Division III, named Kenny Arentz its women's wrestling head coach on September 24, auwolves.com reported. He had been head coach of the Governor Mifflin High School girls' team, and Alvernia opens its season November 1 at the ESU Open in East Stroudsburg. Gannon, in Division II, added Sully Allen as an assistant coach under head coach Erin Vandiver, according to gannonsports.com. Allen is head coach of the girls' team at General McLane High School, and in April 2026 he founded Trained To Pin Wrestling, an all-girls club in Erie.

In Kearney, Nebraska, two retired school librarians wrote the girls wrestling book a group of students had asked for. Three years ago a group of fourth-grade girls asked Kelly Melson, then the librarian at Northeast Elementary, for a book about girls wrestling, and the library had none. Melson and Hallie Hagan published Girls Wrestling A to Z in May, a book for young readers that explains wrestling terms one letter at a time. Hagan took the photographs, with Kearney High School girls demonstrating the terms. By September 1 they had sold 101 copies across the state, kearneyhub.com reported. It is on the shelf in the children's room at the Kearney Public Library.