Iowa Western adds three-time NAIA All-American McIntyre to staff
Iowa Western has added Abby McIntyre to its women's wrestling staff as an assistant coach for the 2026-27 season.
McIntyre comes to Council Bluffs after spending the 2025-26 season as an assistant at Buena Vista University under head coach Paige Storm, where freshmen Savannah Freifeld and Ella Brown earned American Rivers Conference All-Conference honors. Brown finished as the conference runner-up at 207 pounds and Freifeld placed third at 138.
Before entering the coaching ranks, McIntyre put together one of the most accomplished careers in Grand View women's wrestling history. A three-time NAIA All-American and three-time Heart of America Athletic Conference champion, she finished seventh at the NAIA national tournament in 2022, third in 2023 and capped her career with a runner-up finish at 170 pounds in 2024. She was named the Heart Freshman of the Year in 2022.
Her final season was her best. McIntyre won her third straight Heart championship in 2024, becoming the first Grand View women's wrestler to win three conference titles. In the championship match, she pinned then-No. 1 Ashley Lekas of William Penn in 1:45 and was named the Heart Women's Wrestling Co-Conference Tournament Outstanding Wrestler before advancing to the NAIA national championship match, where she finished second to Lekas. McIntyre received Grand View's Viktors Award for Female Athlete of the Year that season and became the inaugural women's recipient of the Schalles Award, presented by WIN Magazine and Cliff Keen Athletics to the nation's top collegiate pinner. The award is named for former Clarion great Wade Schalles, who set the collegiate career record with 109 pins.
McIntyre began gaining coaching experience before her college career was over, coaching at the Twin River National Duals in 2022, 2023 and 2024 and helping lead her team to an AAU national championship in 2024. She has also coached at the AAU state tournament and conducted camps and clinics throughout Iowa.
A Glenwood, Iowa, native, McIntyre was one of the state's top girls wrestlers before the IGHSAU sanctioned the sport. Wrestling for Glenwood High School, she won two IWCOA girls state championships while also competing in the school's wrestling program. She was a USA Wrestling state freestyle champion, a Fargo All-American and a finalist for the Dan Gable Wrestler of the Year Award in both 2020 and 2021 and was named the Hy-Vee Wrestler of the Year in 2020.
McIntyre joins an Iowa Western program led by head coach Myranda Velazquez that has quickly established itself among the top NJCAA programs in the country. The Reivers finished as national runner-up in 2025 with six All-Americans and three individual national champions before placing seventh at the 2026 NJCAA Women's Wrestling Invitational, highlighted by Ayana Fletcher winning her second straight national championship. Glenwood is located roughly 20 miles south of Iowa Western's campus in Council Bluffs, making the hire a homecoming of sorts for McIntyre.