When the ISU wrestling team fell to Oklahoma last week, there was one thing on the team’s mind: redemption.

The Cyclones felt they were able to achieve it with a 22-13 win against Rutgers on Jan. 17 in Hilton Coliseum.

“We think a few matches were a little too close for comfort,” said ISU coach Kevin Jackson. “But we won the close matches for the most part, and just need to keep improving.”

But it wasn’t a walk in the park for Iowa State. In fact, the Scarlet Nights stayed within striking distance for the majority of the match, even holding the lead for a while.

It was the Cyclones’ All-Americans Kyven Gadson and Mike Moreno that scored key points for Iowa State, giving the home squad the extra edge.

“We stayed smart tonight,” Gadson said. “We were focused the whole time. Guys sometimes lose their focus during crunch time, but I think for the most part guys stayed calm and focused, and that was big for us tonight.”

Another big match came from senior Boaz Beard, who wrestled the final match on the night. Beard finished his match with 5:23 of riding time, the largest amount of riding time for the team by far.

Beard’s 6-2 decision effectively sealed the dual win for Iowa State.

“My All-Americans came out and did well tonight,” Jackson said. “I think Beard closing out the match the way he did, with the hard ride and just being really tough on top. I’m really happy with how he came out tonight.”

Iowa State was once again missing 125-pounder Earl Hall, who suffered a minor knee injury last week. Redshirt freshman Kyle Larson took Hall’s spot for the second meet in a row and Jackson also put in redshirt sophomore Shayden Terukina at 133 pounds.

With two younger guys on the mat, Jackson wasn’t positive how they would handle it, but he was impressed with the result.

“It just says about our whole program that we’ve added some depth,” Jackson said. “They believe that they are capable, and that they can win at this level. They believe that they are supposed to be the starter for Iowa State, so those were big matches for them.”

Neither Larson nor Terukina had the lead heading into the third period of their matches., but both rallied in the final minutes, and  won their respective matches by 3-2 decisions.

Closing out tightly-contested matches seemed to happen more often than not Friday. And while they haven’t been able to close out many of the tight matches recently, the wrestlers are happy that it is coming out now.

“I think we competed a little bit better tonight,” said Luke Goettl, redshirt junior. “I saw guys getting out there and taking shots, and not getting frustrated when guys were trying to stall on us. If you take care of yourself, the team takes care of itself, and that’s what we did.”