The ISU wrestling team has returned from a brief road trip to the East Coast, where it picked up three wins in two days and started showing signs of real improvement following a dismal start to the season.

The Cyclones (4-3, 0-1 Big 12) defeated Rutgers on Friday and followed up with victories against Drexel and No. 20 Penn on Sunday to move their record above .500 for the first time since 2010-11.

“I thought the guys wrestled real hard, wrestled real well,” said ISU coach Kevin Jackson in a news conference on Monday. “Our guys are competing the way that we have to compete to give us a chance to win every single match.

“I’m excited about the way they did compete and the progress we have made and I look forward to that continuing.”

The weekend concluded with a convincing 25-9 victory against No. 20 Penn; during which ISU redshirt sophomore Kyven Gadson earned an upset victory at 197 pounds against No. 7 Micah Burak.

ISU freshman John Meeks earned the first dual victories of his ISU career Sunday, going 2-0 on the day. Michael Moreno and Boaz Beard also won both their matches Sunday.

“We did a couple things real well that we’ve been talking about for a while now,” Jackson said. “We took the attack as opposed to waiting for them to attack us, we continued to score, we looked for bonus points, we looked for falls — just doing the things that we want to see our athletes do.”

“They’re wrestling like Cyclones, they’re wrestling like we’re supposed to wrestle.”

Jackson cites the dual meet at Iowa on Dec. 1 as the turning point of the season. The Cyclones fell to the then No. 4 Hawkeyes 32-3, but gained the experience that has allowed them to improve in recent meets.

The fact that the Cyclones didn’t leave it all on the mat or “let the chips fall where they may” led to the extremely one-sided score at Iowa, Jackson said. He believes an attitude change has occurred as a result.

“Since the Iowa dual, I think each and every time out there our guys have laid it out there,” Jackson said. “We look forward to that continuing and as that continues, the tactical approach and the technical approach will kick in even stronger. We’re going to be real good.”

The Cyclones return to the mat on Jan. 26 for a dual meet on the road against new Big 12 foe, West Virginia.