Four-time national champion Murphy replicated coach’s feats in NCWA women’s ranks

Jesse Castro Cendall Manley — In 2020, (Manley) Murphy joined Head Coach Jesse Casto as the second four-time national champion in Liberty wrestling history.

As the first women's wrestler in Liberty University Club Sports history, Cendall (Manley) Murphy ('20, '23) joined some elite company when she won her fourth consecutive National Collegiate Wrestling Association (NCWA) Grand National women's tournament championship at 155 pounds in March 2020 at the Allen (Texas) Event Center.

That was nearly 40 years after then Liberty Head Coach Jesse Castro became the Flames' first student-athlete to accomplish the feat from 1977-81. Murphy is also one of only two four-time NCWA Women's Grand National champions in league history.

"To win a national championship obviously takes a great deal of effort and commitment, but to win it twice, three times, and four times, is a very difficult feat," Castro said of Murphy, who will be inducted as one of three members of the 12th class of the Club Sports Hall of Fame during Wednesday night's annual Choice Awards in the School of Music Concert Hall. "People don't understand the self-induced pressure that you're under to repeat a national championship. She was a very good student, maintaining a high-honors GPA, and she definitely mastered handling that pressure on the mat, too, with a great support system in her family."

Charisse and Cendall Manley with Josiah Murphy — Charisse (Manley) McIlhenny and Josiah Murphy joined Cendall (Manley Murphy as NCWA national champions in 2019.

Murphy's fourth and final NCWA Grand National Tournament — held the weekend after most athletic competitions across the United States were canceled by COVID-19 — was the perfect culmination of her four-year undergraduate career at Liberty before she completed her B.S. in Psychology: Counseling. She later earned her M.A. in Clinical Mental Health Counseling.

"It truly parallels my spiritual walk, and this wrestling team has helped mature me as a woman of God, to be able to go out there and represent Liberty and Christ and my team," she said at the time. "It was honestly really the Lord in the details. To wrestle alongside my sister and to have my dad — who was our coach all the way from elementary through high school in Hawaii — in the crowd for my last match, everything kind of goes full-circle."

Murphy now serves as assistant coach of the Lady Flames under her older sister, Charisse (Manley) McIlhenny, who was runner-up at nationals in 2020 after capturing the 2019 crown at 136 pounds. Their father, Liberty alumnus Randy Manley ('87), wrestled for Liberty in the mid-1980s when Castro was the team's graduate assistant and then assistant coach under the program's founding Head Coach Bob Bonheim.

"Coach Castro was actually in my parents' wedding, and I knew him before I got to Liberty," said Cendall, the fourth of the Manleys' five children, with all but the oldest currently serving as a wrestling coach.

Cendall Manley with Randy and Louise Manley — Cendall poses with her parents, Liberty alumni Randy and Louise Manley, after winning her fourth NCWA title.

"My dad coached us all (through Molokai High School) … and now in our adult lives four of us are still involved in the sport, so it definitely is still a big part of the family dynamic," Cendall said, noting her older brother coaches a high school wrestling team on the island of Maui and her younger brother coaches a middle school team on the island of Oahu.

"Dad really laid the groundwork for me knowing the basics of wrestling, and I was a state champion in Hawaii my senior year, which was a huge accomplishment," she added. "Bringing in that solid foundation of skills, Coach Castro expanded on that and gave me more confidence in the college realm to be able to compete at a higher level."

As the founding member of the women's team at Liberty, she spearheaded what is now a full-fledged program.

"She didn't have any teammates," Castro said. "She was pretty much on her own, took the initiative and was a staple, working right along with the guys. That was a difficult task, but she was committed to it and she reaped the benefits from it, too."

Murphy learned plenty of life lessons through the sport and she and her older sister have been able to transmit those over to the current wrestlers in the program.

Cendall and Josiah Murphy with children — Cendall and Josiah Murphy with Caspian (17 months) and Zuriah (1 month)

"I always tell our team that wrestling parallels a lot of my spiritual walk," she said. "Those ideas of discipline, and consistency, and hard work, and showing up when you don't feel like it correlated well to life in general. And now, as a wife and mother, I am so passionate about the sport, but beyond that, wrestling helps develop these girls into strong women with godly character, women who love the Lord and want to encourage and instill those good qualities into the next generation of wrestlers."

On April 6, Murphy and her husband, Josiah Murphy, a three-time NCWA Grand National Champion for the Flames, welcomed their second child, Zuriah Quinn Murphy, the younger sister of Caspian, now 17 months. With seven national titles under their belts, the Murphys have a lot to live up to as they train their children to be Champions for Christ themselves.

By Ted Allen/Staff Writer

Liberty University Club Sports Athletics

Four-time national champion Murphy replicated coach’s feats in NCWA women’s ranks

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