A year ago, Matt Gibson did not even suit up in cardinal and gold for the Cyclones in postseason tournaments.

On Saturday, the 6-foot-7-inch heavyweight had his hand raised as the Cyclones’ were the only Big 12 title winners at the Big 12 Championships in Columbia, Mo.

Gibson was one of four Cyclones to secure qualifying bids for the NCAA Championships, which will take place March 15-17 in St. Louis.

Team-wise, Iowa State finished dead last in the conference for the second straight year, tallying a total of 24 team points in the tournament. Missouri came away with the team title, defeating Oklahoma State by four points to earn its first Big 12 team championship in school history.

Boaz Beard officially punched his ticket to the NCAA Championships, finishing second in the conference at 184 pounds. The redshirt sophomore defeated Oklahoma’s Erich Schmidtke in an 8-6 sudden-victory decision to secure the berth.

Beard, who returned to Iowa State after spending a year playing baseball for Division II Emporia State, lost to Missouri’s Mike Larson in a 5-4 decision in the championship match to finish second at 184 pounds.

Andrew Sorenson suffered his second loss of the season, losing to Missouri’s, Zach Toal in the championship match at 165 pounds. Sorenson, the top-seeded wrestler, had already secured a bid to NCAAs along with the three other starters at 165 pounds in the conference.

Despite going 0-2 on Saturday, redshirt freshman Ryak Finch was the other automatic qualifier for the Cyclones since automatic bids were allotted to every 125-pounder in the conference.

Finch lost to top-seeded Jarrod Patterson of Oklahoma in a 5-4 sudden-victory decision before losing to Oklahoma State’s Jon Morrison 4-1 in the third-place match.

Jerome Ward lost his shot at a fourth trip to the NCAA Championships, losing both his matches to place fourth at 197 pounds. Since he sat out for almost the entire season due to a serious back injury, Ward does not have enough matches on the season to qualify for an at-large bid.

Shayden Terukina (133), Luke Goettl (141), Joey Cozart (149), Michael Moreno (157) and Chris Spangler (174) all failed to secure bids to the NCAA Championships, going 0-2 in competition to place last in their respective classes.

Spangler injury-defaulted the third-place match at 174 pounds to place fourth. The status of his injury is not known at this time, but if he is good to go for competition, he will likely receive an at-large bid to the tournament.

At-large bids will be announced this week.