No. 12 Iowa State is back in action this week as they head to Las Vegas for one of the toughest regular season tournaments in college wrestling, the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational. The Cyclones enter the weekend as the defending champions after taking the 2023 CKLV team title.
The action starts on Friday, Dec. 6 at 11 a.m. (CT).
During weekly media availability, head coach Kevin Dresser shared that on top of those traveling to Las Vegas, they will be sending wrestlers to compete in the Cleveland State and Buena Vista Open tournaments.
What did Dresser have to say about the lineup?
125 pounds
Kysen Terukina beat Adrian Meza for the starting spot at 125 pounds and was supposed to be the starter against Iowa. However, Terukina woke up with a stiff neck and was pretty sore on the Friday before the dual. Terukina is expected to return against North Dakota State on Dec. 15. The plan is to redshirt Meza and have Terukina as the permanent starter.
Here’s what Dresser had to say about Meza: “Adrian has done a great job. He’s 8-0 and he’s had to wrestle off like four times. He’s really stepped up and done a good job for us. I love his professionalism. I love how he approaches making his weight and all that kind of stuff. As he gets better at wrestling, like we all needed to when we were freshman, he’s got a chance to really help us down the road. He got our wrestler of the week award last week. We call it our big head award.”
Here’s what Dresser had to say about Terukina: “We’ve seen a guy that’s really, really good. I really like the guy we’ve seen in the last 2 months in the way he approaches everything. He’s not hurt that bad, but to the point that we don’t want his first weekend to be two days of Las Vegas because then all we’re doing is setting ourselves up for sitting him three or four more weeks. If the right word is babying him, we’re babying him a little bit to get him feeling good so that when we turn him loose on Dec. 15 we can just rock n roll. If he gets it going, and I really like what I see right now, if that guy gets it going, he’s going to go a long way in March.”
141 pounds
The team held a wrestle off between Jacob Frost and Zach Redding. Frost earned the start for the Cliff Keen Invitational.
157 pounds
At 157, Paniro Johnson is the starter. Cody Chittum will travel with Coach St. John to the Cleveland State open. Dresser mentioned they have some things to figure out in regards to whether or not Chittum will redshirt.
165 pounds
The gut punch news of the week was that 165 pounder Connor Euton tore his ACL in matchup against Michael Caliendo in the Cy-Hawk dual. He will be out for the rest of the season and will use a medical redshirt. That will give him three more seasons with the Cyclones. Here’s what Dresser had to say: “Connor Euton showed the wrestling world just how competitive and tough he is.”
MJ Gaitan will return to the starting lineup.
285 pounds
Where is Yonger Bastida? Dresser shared that he’s still not 100 percent.
“Yonger went in there (Cy-Hawk dual) and probably wasn’t quite ready to go. Didn’t injure anything worse, but didn’t help ourselves there. So we’re going to sit Yonger probably until Nashville, which is Dec. 21,” said Dresser. “That’s when he’s scheduled to be released by the doctors. We didn’t injure anything, if I held my cards to anything Yonger did not get to train at all before that match in Iowa City. He just wanted to go out there and compete and so so we, obviously we’re a little bit banged up right now, and sometimes that just goes in streaks and we’re in that streak.”
Cliff Keen Invitational Starting Lineup and Pre-seeds. Plus, those traveling to other tournaments
“You know, last year, what I liked is we got done with a pretty tough loss on a Sunday here at Hilton against Iowa, and then we had to leave Wednesday to go to Vegas. And then Friday and Saturday, we win. You know, last year was no different than this year. Seventeen of the top 20 teams in the nation are going to be in Las Vegas, and it was the same way last year. The only teams that aren’t there are, obviously, two or three really good ones: Penn State, Minnesota, and Iowa,” said Dresser. “It’s good for us. It’s going to be a lot of questions answered, and it’s a chance, really. I mean, you know, if you do well as an individual in this, you really set yourself up. I think Evan Frost is a perfect example. Evan got to the finals last year and went to the NCAA tournament. He was, what, a top-seven seed, top-six seed. So he really set his season up nice. So that’s why this tournament is important.”
125: Adrian Meza – No. 9
133: Evan Frost – No. 2
141: Jacob Frost – Unseeded
149: Anthony Echemendia – No. 3
157: Paniro Johnson – No. 5
165: MJ Gaitan – No. 5
174: Aiden Riggins – Unseeded
184: Evan Bockman – No. 5
197: Christian Carroll – No. 9
285: Daniel Herrera – Unseeded
Teams competing at the tournament: App State, Arizona State, Binghamton, Cal Baptist, Cal Poly, CSU Bakersfield, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Hofstra, Michigan, Nebraska, NC State, Navy, Northwestern, Ohio State, Ohio, Oklahoma State, Oregon State, Purdue, Rider, Sacred Heart,
South Dakota State, Stanford, UNI, Utah Valley, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, Wyoming.
Find more detailed tournament information here.
CLEVELAND STATE OPEN
125: Ethan Perryman
157: Cody Chittum
165: Manny Rojas
197: Sawyer Bartelt
BUENA VISTA OPEN
133: *Canon Acklin, *Osmany Diversent, Blake Gioimo, Garrett Grice
157: *Kane Naaktgeboren, Christian Stanek, Logan Stotts
165: *Gabe Carver
174: Cade Schmidt
184: *Cole Carlucci, Caleb Helgeson, Nando Villaescusa
197: Jacob Cates, McCrae Hagarty, *Nate Schon, Rowan Udell
285: Xavier Bruening, CJ Carter
*Wrestling attached
