ST. LOUIS — As a man on a mission, Andrew Sorenson did not disappoint. Even if he had to wince a little bit.

Sorenson, the No. 3 seed at 165 pounds, won both his matches Thursday to advance to the quarterfinals — as the only Cyclone to do so — at the NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis.

The wins, however, were not up to par in terms of his expectations as team captain.

“We’ll take the win, we really will take the win in this situation, but we think we’re better,” said ISU coach Kevin Jackson of Sorenson. “We think we’re capable of scoring more points and there may be reasons why he didn’t score as many as we like, but to win and advance is really the key to this tournament.”

In his 4-2 victory against Cornell’s Marshall Peppelman in the second round on Thursday night, Sorenson said he sprained his ankle after getting it caught in a “funny” position during a scramble.

“It’s never easy,” Sorenson said. “It’s just not easy when I think everything is going my way and then I sprain my ankle against a kid that I should be scoring a lot of points against. That’s just tough luck.”

Sorenson previously beat Peppelman by a 21-6 technical fall on Jan. 29 during Iowa State’s 28-11 dual loss to Cornell at Hilton Coliseum.

In the first round, Sorenson avenged a brutal 12-3 loss to Drexel’s Joe Booth — which knocked him out of the 2010 tournament — by negating a comeback attempt in the final minute to win 9-5.

That match, however, was one Sorenson was not too happy about.

“I started off a little slow in the first match,” Sorenson said. “Once I got taken down, though, the pace picked up. I’ve still got to make sure I’m getting more offense off and starting the period off harder.”

As far as avenging his loss to Booth two years ago, Sorenson said he doesn’t even remember that match.

“I thought I recognized the name when I saw the brackets, so I had to look it up to see who I lost to [to see] if that was him,” Sorenson said. “I wasn’t mentally into that match my sophomore year. I kind of fooled it.”

As the only Cyclone remaining in the championship bracket, Sorenson will face No. 11 Brandon Hatchett of Lehigh in the quarterfinals on Friday morning. If he wins that match, he will attain All-America status.

Heavyweight Matt Gibson lost his debut match in the tournament, falling to Ohio State’s Peter Capone 6-5 at the tail end of session I on Thursday afternoon.

Gibson, the No. 12 seed at heavyweight, was absolutely gassed after notching two reversals against Capone, limiting his ability to fire off attacks and score points while trailing.

Gibson dropped a consolation match against Northern Iowa’s Blayne Beale, which he won 10-3 to advance to Friday morning competition.

“We just told [Gibson] to relax more,” Jackson said. “I really thought he thought that first match was going to be easy based on the kid’s record. It’s all a mental game at this level.”

Gibson will need to win the next four matches to become the first All-American at heavyweight since David Zabriskie won the title in 2010.

Boaz Beard took an early exit from the tournament, dropping both his matches to be eliminated at 184 pounds.

“I think the year off and some of the injuries probably caught up with him at the very end,” Jackson said of Beard. “He kind of resorted back to some of the mistakes we were making at the beginning of the year that we thought we had solved.

“I think he made some mistakes as opposed to those guys just beating him.”

At the beginning of the season, Beard transferred back to Iowa State from Emporia State (Kan.), where he played baseball at the Division II level.

Redshirt freshmen Ryak Finch (125) and Luke Goettl (141) made their debut at the NCAA Championships, both losing in the first round — Finch by major decision — to seeded opponents to drop to the wrestlebacks.

However, after a 52-second pin by Finch and a 1:39 pin by Goettl, both have managed to move on in the consolation brackets.

“You’ve got to win in advance and so that’s what they did so far,” Jackson said. “Getting pins is just a bonus on top of that, so it just showed that they were still mentally into it by going out there and getting pins.”

Session III will begin at 10 a.m. Friday and can be seen on ESPN3.com.