What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

After competing in the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational last weekend, the ISU wrestling team is already moving forward.

The Cyclones finished eighth as a team with 62.5 points after it was all said and done Saturday, Dec. 7. The team, however, feels that it left a lot out on the mat.

“I’m pretty confident that if we had Kyven [Gadson] and Boaz [Beard] in the lineup, we would be contending for the title,” said ISU coach Kevin Jackson. “But overall, we still have some areas where we need to improve in, and this weekend showed that.”

Gadson, redshirt junior, didn’t compete as a precaution to prevent further injury, and Beard, a redshirt senior, is yet to be fully recovered from the elbow injury he suffered earlier in the season.

Jackson said he feels confident however, that they will both return to the lineup quickly, if not by next weekend.

“I’m excited that we will be at full strength in the lineup on Saturday,” Jackson said. “Boaz will be in the lineup for the first time. He won’t have an easy match his first time out. It’ll be a challenge, but hopefully he can stay healthy through that. Kyven will be back in the lineup too, so hopefully we will see a preview of the lineup we will have next semester.”

Michael Moreno, redshirt junior who finished the tournament as a runner-up at 165 pounds, was one of the five Cyclones to place at the tournament.

Even with his second-place finish, Moreno still feels like he lacked on the mat.

“I was getting tired, and I was kind of getting complacent with some of my opponents, especially in the quarters and semifinals,” Moreno said. “In the finals, things just kind of caught up to me. I got caught sleeping in the first period. More than anything, it just shows that nobody is invincible. I need to correct a few things before I can really progress before March.”

And while eighth wasn’t where the team wanted to end up, the wrestlers took notice of some of the younger wrestler’s performance.

“If myself and a few others would have wrestled better, it could have changed things,” said redshirt junior Luke Goettl. “But we did have some guys really step up huge. Earl [Hall] and Gabe [Moreno] did a great job, and I’m really proud of those guys.”

The team will head to Fargo, N.D., this weekend for a dual with North Dakota State. The Cyclones are focused this week on just moving forward, and they know that they can do better.

“Hopefully, it lights a fire under us,” Gabe Moreno said. “We shouldn’t have been eighth at that tournament [in Las Vegas]. We could have been top-three, no doubt. If we want to win an NCAA title, we’re really going to have to step up and score points as a team. I’m not satisfied with this.”