Wheeling Women Open First Season with a Victory
Wheeling Women Open First Season with a Victory
Wheeling University’s women’s team played its inaugural game this weekend, defeating Ohio State 30-5 on Saturday.
Wheeling started their program this year and brought in Head Coach Ken Pape, who had parted ways with Lander after last season. Fourteen student-athletes followed Pape from Lander, which certainly helped kick-start the roster. Pape recruited 13 freshmen to add to that, including four from Ohio Girls HS Club champions Brunswick.
The game itself started fairly even and it was 5-5 before captain Ema Tai scores to put the Cardinals ahead to stay. Bella Gullata added a try to make it 15-5.
Tai scored her second and Jemmely Rivera added tries in the second half, while Marissa Hudson added a penalty and Gullata a conversion.
With a fairly short runway to build a program—the program was announced in April and Pape hired in May— Pape saw some early fruits with this result, and the coach himself thanks the college for the resources they’ve put behind the team.
“It’s coming together really nicely,” said the coach.
Next up for Wheeling is Emory & Henry and they the Cardinals also have Cincinnati, Penn State, Ohio, Pitt, Kent State, Life University, and another new program with lots of transfers, Walsh, on the docket.
