AMES — The Cyclones learned a tough lesson on Sunday afternoon: The Cy-Hawk rivalry isn’t quite back, yet.
“We just got beat by a really damn good team,” said head coach Kevin Dresser.
Iowa State suffered a tough 29-6 loss against Iowa in Hilton Coliseum. That marks the 16th straight dual win for the Hawkeyes in the Cy-Hawk series.
“I think the fortunate thing about wrestling a great team is you really, really get exposed and you really know what you need to get a work on,” Dresser said.
The dual was eye-opening. Some of the matches that felt nearly guaranteed to work out in the Cyclones’ favor resulted in Iowa victories. Example: No. 5 Sammy Colbray being upset by Iowa’s redshirt freshman, Nelson Brands, 4-3.
Iowa State only garnered four takedowns in the entire dual. Iowa had 27.
“I’ve turned the page,” Dresser said. “I’m really looking forward to seeing how we regroup. It’s easy to bring a team in and train a team after a big win. It’s not as easy to bring a team in and train after a loss, but you learn a lot about them. I think we’ve got a lot of character and I think we’ve got a lot of guys that wrestling’s really important to right now.”
What was there to learn?
Leaving disappointed because the Cyclones once again lost to the Hawks means Dresser is doing something right. It means his roster is producing results and shows promising potential to bring hope back to the fans that they can go head-to-head with some of the toughest guys in the nation.
One of the shinning lights of the day comes from 157 pounder No. 19 David Carr. The Junior World Champion went out there, scrapped hard all seven minutes and got points on the board for his team after defeating No. 2 Kaleb Young.
“When you get a guy like Carr…he’s a sneaky snake,” Iowa head coach Tom Brands said. “He’s going to wrestle hard.
Following his 5-1 win in an explosive Hilton environment, all Carr had to say was how excited he is to get back to work.
“That was nuts. That was crazy. It’s a phenomenal feeling,” Carr said. “It makes me want to go back and work hard. It makes me want to crush every workout and believe in my coaches even more.”
Another guy in the lineup who represents exactly the potential this team has to grow into is redshirt junior No. 12 Ian Parker. Of the four takedowns of the day, he garnered two of them. A leader by example, Parker went into his match and showed the grit every Cyclone should hope to throw out on the mat come March.
Dresser mentioned Parker has been a little dinged up and they were going to make a game time decision as to whether the 141-pounder would take the mat or not for the day.
“He’s been banged up a little bit. He hasn’t been able to train nearly at the capacity he can train at and that’s a high capacity,” Dresser said. “He was kind of questionable even this week. He was kind of a game time decision but we knew he was going to have to do it the Ian Parker way: just suck it up and be tough.”
Parker did just that. He won his match 6-4 in a sudden victory.
The Cyclones will hit the wrestling room Monday and Tuesday but then have the holiday off. Then, they will take the stage again in Las Vegas Dec. 6-7 at the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational.
“I mean, it’s November,” Carr said. “I think it’s good to learn from a top team. I mean, they’re really tough. So we learned a lot about each other and we learned a lot that we can just keep learning from. I think the most important month is March, so we’re going to keep progressing as a team and keep getting better. That’s exciting.”
