Despite coming out with two dual wins, some members of the No. 16 ISU wrestling team wasn’t too pleased after Thursday night’s matchups.

In fact, ISU coach Kevin Jackson was disappointed with the way the team started out this season’s campaign.

“That’s not the way we want to start our season. We lost some matches that I thought we should have won,” Jackson said. “We did see some signs of guys that are competitive, but we’re not happy with wrestling that kind of dual. We weren’t tough enough tonight in several areas, but we’ll get that corrected for next week.”

Iowa State started out slow, losing its first three matches to Drexel, but responded after falling behind early, 10-0. The Cyclones won the next six matches in a row to defeat Drexel 24-16.

But the big story from the first match came from Lelund Weatherspoon. Weatherspoon was a late addition to the lineup after senior Boaz Beard suffered an elbow injury last week.

Wrestling in his first ever match for the Cyclones, Weatherspoon firing and led 4-1 within the first 30 seconds of the match. Weatherspoon ended up winning the match 17-6.

“The coaches wanted me to go out there and win, so I went out there and won,” Weatherspoon said. “Getting under the lights of Hilton for the first time was great. I’m glad to get it under my belt like that. It was very special.”

Weatherspoon had to wrestle up a weight class to fill in for Beard’s absence.

“Lelund was outweighed tonight, but he took it to him,” Jackson said. “He competed the way we want to see all of our guys compete, up and down the lineup. He’s a winner, he’s a competitor and he has been since day one. I think if we can get him bigger and stronger, he could be at 184 in the future.”

Coming into the second dual of the night, several wrestlers were looking for redemption, and found it.

Kyle Larson and Dakota Bauer, who both lost their matches in the first dual, came out against Grand View and won 14-3 and 12-5, respectively.

“It was huge. I talked to Bauer after his match, and he fist pumped and was real happy,” said senior John Nicholson. “Those losses early on were more technical than anything. Those things can be fixed in practice, it’s not anything else.”

Nicholson, a transfer from Old Dominion, pinned his opponent early in the third period, which came right after Isaiah Tatum of Grand View pinned Iowa State’s Luke Goettl.

The Cyclones felt Nicholson’s pin was a momentum shift in the meet.

“It was huge for me,” Nicholson said. “Since I was a kid, I’ve been coming up to every meet, so to get under those lights was great for me. I think we got things rolling a little better after that.”

However, despite the positives that came from these two meets, the team still found a lot that they need to work on for next week.

“I think it was big for us to know that we started in the right place, but in the wrong place at the same time,” said All-American junior Kyven Gadson. “We’ve got things to work on, and we have to get better. We have some top teams coming in here this season, and we can’t afford to wrestle like we did today if we want to compete for a national title.”