PROFILE: Audrey Jimenez ’28, Lehigh Women’s Wrestling

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Audrey Jimenez ’28 has already made history as a female wrestler winning an Arizona boys high school state title. Now she’s making more as Lehigh’s women wrestling squad enters its first varsity season.

Stephen Gross

Christa Neu

January 14, 2026

Athletics

College of Arts and Sciences

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Alumni Bulletin

Fresh off the UWW U20 World Championships (in which three other Mountain Hawks participated) in Bulgaria, the World Championships in Croatia and the U23 World Championships 2025, Audrey Jimenez '28 is prepared for Lehigh’s inaugural women’s wrestling varsity season. Capturing her fifth career world medal—silver at 50 kg—at the U20 World Championships, Jimenez also finished runner-up at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials in 2024 and has her sights set on 2028.

Major: Sociology

What would your dream job be?

When I was really young, a veterinarian or firefighter. Now it’s something within the wrestling community or helping underprivileged kids. I’m from a part of town in Arizona where many people grew up in unfortunate circumstances. Seeing that and all the potential in those areas, I would love to help people reach their goals.

How did Lehigh get on your radar growing up in Arizona?

Wrestling. In December of my high school senior year, Aubre Krazer’s ’25 dad reached out to my dad once there was the potential of Lehigh becoming a Division I program. I know Aubre’s family has been involved with the Lehigh program for a long time. I hadn't thought about Lehigh previously, but then it was like, ‘Oh yeah, let's go for a visit.’ It’s a really great balance between both wrestling and academics. I had goals to go to a pretty challenging and great academic school, and then the fact that Lehigh has such an amazing wrestling community is even better. It worked out perfectly.

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When did you first start wrestling?

I was 11 years old. I never even knew wrestling was a sport. My dad had played football, my mom had played soccer and softball. I had played softball from a really young age. I remember we had gone on a seasonal break and, coincidentally, at the same time, my Tio (uncle) opened up a jiu jitsu gym. Once I was introduced to jiu jitsu, then wrestling was also introduced because you could kind of intertwine both sports within takedowns and stuff. Once I tried out jiu jitsu, I did that for a couple of months, and then I transitioned into wrestling from there and I never stopped. I fell in love with it from the start. It was just the individual aspect of it. You have a team beside you, but you're also able to control your results.

When you started, was it co-ed?

Yeah, it was mostly co-ed. In Arizona, there were a handful of girls that wrestled in the entire state. By the time I got to high school, it definitely grew. Thankfully, Arizona sanctioned girls wrestling in high school as a sport when I was in seventh or eighth grade. The state competition [for girls began] to grow [but] throughout middle school and even in high school, I would compete against guys most of the time.

You mentioned softball. Did you play any other sports growing up?

Cross country when I was super young, but softball was really the only sport that I took very seriously.

How did you win the Arizona boys state title in 2024 after being a three-time girls state champion?

Senior year, myself and one other girl had to petition the board of Arizona wrestling and ask if we could wrestle boys, because previously they wouldn't let us. My freshman year we hardly had a season. We jumped straight into the state tournament because of COVID. There I just wrestled girls. My sophomore and junior years, I wrestled boys throughout the regular season, and then when sectionals and state came around, I wrestled girls. That's why when I was a senior we were like, ‘Let's just try to ask them.’ My coaches and the athletic director at my high school put in a lot of effort to go to these meetings with the board. Girls wrestling was growing, but it wasn't as competitive as it was for the guys. The championship itself would have been more fulfilling if I could wrestle the boys. At the very end, obviously we were both able to wrestle in the boys tournament.

Athlete in a wrestling uniform kneeling confidently, set in an indoor gym space.

That was probably really fulfilling.

It was so awesome. Thankfully, everybody is very supportive in Arizona. I've never had any negative interactions or anything when it comes to being a female in a male-dominated sport. It was just an amazing experience. Overall, I had a lot of fun.

With women's wrestling exploding in popularity, do you ever think about your role in helping to grow the sport?

I'm just enjoying the ride. I am aware of the role I do have. I'm fortunate enough to have met a lot of younger girl wrestlers from around the country that have expressed that they look up to me. There are also new friendships I’ve made because of my success in wrestling. That's really special. I think it's one of the most rewarding things I’ve experienced. Being in the sport, it’s not about the titles or being able to win, but more so the connections and the impact I've been able to make. When I was younger, I was looking up to girls such as Helen Maroulis [the first U.S. woman to wrestle at three Olympic Games and a four-time gold medalist at the World Championships] and all these big names in women's wrestling. If your goal is to make an impact, it's a little bit harder to translate that into your results. I'm just trying to have fun with it, go with the flow. But it's a plus that I can have an influence on people coming up through the sport behind me.

What else do you have on the horizon as far as wrestling goes?

We have an awesome team [at Lehigh]. We're building a great culture, and having a bunch of new incoming freshmen, it's awesome to experience. We can do really well, especially with the first official NCAA Women’s Tournament [being held in 2026]. That's exciting, and I hope we can win that and get some individual titles as well. After that, I want to continue to make world teams and medal at world championships. And then in ‘28 there's going to be Olympic Trials again so we'll see how that goes.

Of all your accomplishments so far, which one has meant the most?

They all definitely carry a lot of meaning, but I won U20 Nationals, made the world team and then went on to win the US Open. I remember going up to my family afterwards and I was just so grateful because I had come off an injury and come off of surgery, so I was off the mat for quite some time. I know a whole lot of athletes experience it, where you just have doubts about coming back and you have some doubts about how things are going to unfold, but in those moments, I felt so blessed to have overcome all of that. I also gained so much from those experiences where I wasn't able to wrestle. I gained so much purpose and more love for the sport itself, and more awareness of why I do it.

How do you balance everything? Do you have support at the university?

I'm blessed with a lot of support. Whether it's from [women’s head wrestling] coach Brazel [Marquez], our new assistant coach Guesseppe [Rea] or coach Kerry [McCoy at the [Lehigh Valley Wrestling] RTC (Regional Training Center), I have really great people around me that help me carry the load. They're the ones pushing me or changing up my training schedule a little bit to give me time to recover and spend some time with family. That's always really refreshing whenever I get to spend time with people I love. … My professors work with me, so every time I'm out of the country, I'm able to keep up with my work and not have to stress about school because of the support here at Lehigh. It helps me focus on wrestling when I need to, but it also helps me stay engaged and involved with school as well.

What is the toughest thing about wrestling itself?

Definitely the mental part. So many people have amazing physical capabilities, and they realize that. For a lot of people, it's not very hard to train and push your body past some limits. But I noticed that for myself it's definitely the mindset that I struggle with. Whether that's finding the balance between confidence. Recently, I feel like I put in so much effort and so much time and energy into working hard or working on these technical positions, that sometimes it's really hard to notice the improvement. The past couple of tournaments I haven't won, so coming back from those setbacks, whether it's a loss or an injury, mentally coming back from all of that and keeping the right attitude consistently is pretty tough.

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What's an interesting fact that most people may not know about you?

I don't have a farm, but we have lots of farm animals as pets. We don't use pets for milking. We use the eggs.

What animals do you have?

Three pigs, three goats, one sheep, one miniature horse, about eight chickens and a rooster. We also have a bird, a couple of cats and three dogs.

You must have a pretty big property?

We have about an acre. My mom has always been an animal lover, and her fiance, my stepdad, takes really great care of all of them too.

What's the best thing about Lehigh as a university?

The eagerness to improve no matter what aspect. It's a pretty diverse campus, so the community, whether it's the Christian community, Jewish community, sports community or academic community, everybody's pushing each other to improve and get better, not only in that one aspect, but becoming a better person. The community is very strong and I really do appreciate that.

What's the best thing about the women's wrestling program at Lehigh?

We all have really great values. We all have big goals, but more importantly our coach always emphasizes building a foundation off of being good people and being there for each other no matter what, even off of the mat. Some programs out there that have such a high value on winning. That's where all of us want to be, of course. Most people want to win. But having an emphasis on the person rather than the result, focusing on the process and having those foundational values is really special.