by Andy Hamilton and Kyle Klingman

The opening day of the inaugural NCAA Women’s Wrestling Championships was clouded by an outcome that left both contestants bewildered and their respective head coaches frustrated.

North Central’s Kaelani Shufeldt was disqualified from the tournament Friday night for brutality after officials found a bite mark on the left arm of her opponent, Chloe Dearwester of Presbyterian — which coaches from both schools believe was the result of Dearwester biting her own arm while writhing in pain after sustaining an injury to her right arm.

Shufeldt, the #3 seed, took a 2-0 lead on a takedown a little more than a minute into the 110-pound quarterfinals when the bout was stopped as Dearwester clutched her right elbow.

“While our wrestler was screaming in pain and in a situation where she was literally quivering from the pain she was in, it looks to be that she could’ve possibly done it herself, and those things were brought to the attention of the referee,” Presbyterian coach Brian Vutianitis said.

ESPN’s broadcast showed Dearwester appearing to bite down on her left wrist after the bout was stopped — footage that was not available to officials as they reviewed what transpired.

“Kaelani wears a mouthpiece, so from what we saw with the bite mark, she wouldn’t have been able to leave that kind of ring — at least not with the top of her teeth,” North Central coach Joe Norton said. “I thought it was curious, but the last thing you want to do is accuse the other athlete of biting (herself), so I assumed one of them bit her incidentally in the action.

“So they weren’t sure what to call on the mat — the three officials on the mat. … They were talking about calling brutality, and Brian said, ‘Hey, we can just take a caution and one, I don’t think we have to call it brutality and take it that far.’ Sammy Julian, head official, said to Danny (Blackshear), the official with the whistle, ‘If you three (officials) call brutality, then I review it and it comes to me. That was the call they made.

“(Julian) watched the wrestling action and came back and called the brutality. When I questioned it, he told me there was no point at which Chloe’s own mouth went near enough for to left wrist for her to bite herself, so it must’ve been us, which I questioned. I said, ‘Did you see (Shufeldt) bite her?’ He said, ‘No.’ I thought that was interesting that if you don’t see a bite that you’re going to call a bite.”

Julian declined an interview request from FloWrestling. 

Roughly 12 minutes after the bout was stopped for injury time, Blackshear brought the wrestlers together in the center of the mat and raised Dearwester’s hand for the disqualification victory, leaving both competitors visibly confused.

“Definitely a very unfortunate situation, and we wish it was handled the right way,” Vutianitis said.

The Presbyterian coach said Dearwester wanted to continue wrestling and Vutianitis said he would’ve supported alternative rulings that would’ve allowed the match to continue.

“All of those are better solutions than the one we ended up with,” Vutianitis said. “My heart goes out to the wrestler who was affected the most, which is Kaelani. I just wish this could’ve been handled in a better way.”

Approximately 90 minutes after the match, the NCAA released the following statement from Oscar Ramirez, the chair of the NCAA Women’s Wrestling Committee:

“Bout 167 of the 2026 NCAA National Collegiate Women’s Wrestling Championships was a quarterfinals match at 110 pounds between No. 3 seed Kaelani Shufeldt of North Central (IL) and No. 6 seed Chloe Dearwester of Presbyterian,” the statement said. “The North Central wrestler was called for brutality by the officials crew on the mat, which immediately triggers review by the jury. The jury upheld the brutality call on the mat, which results in a disqualification from the event by discretion of the officiating body and loss of all of the wrestler’s team points by rule.”

Dearwester medically forfeited both of her due matches on Saturday to place sixth.

Below are interviews with Norton and Vutianitis about the incident. 

Joe Norton, North Central

Brian Vutianitis, Presbyterian