Things are evolving quickly for the Northern Michigan University women’s wrestling team as it enters its fifth season of existence, but the first in a full-fledged NCAA sport with a national championship at the end of a four-month-long campaign.

A season that will contested in a conference for the first time — the Great Lakes Valley Conference including two other GLIAC members — and with a new head coach, Adam Wilson.

There’s only one thing missing — the starting time for any and all matches.

But there’s plenty of time to iron that out with a season that doesn’t begin until the first day of November at the Pointer Open at Wisconsin-Stevens Point in, you guessed it, Stevens Point, Wisconsin.

A series of multi-team tournaments — with one possible dual meet at the end of the regular season back at Stevens Point — moves into a first-time NCAA Division II regional qualifier in late February and then the NCAA Championships in early March.

Before that, however, will be the series of weekend meets with never more than a three-week break from beginning to end. Each meet will be held on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or in a couple cases, two of those days.

Following the Pointer Open at the start of November is the Adrian Duals at downstate Adrian College the next weekend, Nov. 8-9.

The interestingly named 8 Women Battle comes up two weeks after that, the weekend before Thanksgiving, at Wisconsin-Eau Claire on Nov. 22.

With the weekend after Turkey Day off, the Wildcats resume at the first of two Conference Duals meets with their new GLVC buddies in Quincy, Illinois, on Sunday, Dec. 7.

Full-fledged GLVC member Quincy University hosts with a field that should also include the other six women’s wrestling members — NMU, Grand Valley State and Davenport from the GLIAC, and McKendree, Upper Iowa and William Jewell as regular GLVCers.

Northern might just stay in the southern “banana belt” for another meet in Illinois the following Sunday, Dec. 14, in Naperville for the North Central Invitational.

But they’ll definitely have to return home right after that meet, since the Wildcats will host for the only time all season on Friday, Dec. 19, for the Northern Duals with a likely host spot on the floor of the Superior Dome.

After that comes the first of a pair of three-week breaks during the season. On Saturday, Jan. 10, NMU heads south, though this time likely through the Lower Peninsula to Tiffin, Ohio, for the Tiffin Duals.

A quick stop home should follow with a trip seven days later on Jan. 17 for the Mike Duroe Invitational hosted by Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa.

The hits keep coming in January, with the following weekend on Jan. 24 at Conference Duals No. 2, this time the GLVC squads gathering at Grand Valley in Allendale.

And the last Friday in that month, Jan. 30, will be the final regular season meet at UW-Stevens Point. It’s unclear if this is just a two-team or if it’s a more-teams meet.

Another three-week break comes with the NCAA regionals set for Saturday, Feb. 21, and two weeks later, the NCAA Championships on Friday and Saturday, March 6-7, in Coralville, Iowa.

The NCAA moved women’s wrestling out of its Emeging Sports for Women program and into full-fledged status as the 91st championship sport in January. It was noted that there were 76 women’s wrestling programs across all three NCAA divisions in 2023-24, but already by early this year, another 17 were scheduled to be in existence with even more possible.

The NCAA announced there would be separate championships in Divisions I, II and III from the get-go at the end of this season.

Bringing the sport into the GLVC makes it the 27th sport sponsored by this conference.

NMU’s Wilson, by the way, takes over from Tony DeAnda as head coach, the latter headed west to head up the D-II program at Jamestown (North Dakota).

Wilson previously coached both men’s and women’s programs at Division III Albion downstate, helping that university reinstate a men’s program that had been dormant as a varsity sport for four decades, while establishing the women’s program from scratch in 2020.

Story contents based on Northern Michigan University Sports Information press release reviewing/previewing the games/meet. Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee’s email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.