Kevin Jackson did not know what else to say.

After his team lost two winnable matches — both in overtime — that cost it a conference dual against Missouri 24-11 at Hilton Coliseum on Sunday afternoon, the third-year coach could only express disappointment.

“I like the way Luke Goettl’s been performing from a competitive standpoint, I like the way Matt Gibson is performing, I like the way Andrew Sorenson continues to compete,” Jackson said. “But we have a couple other guys that we’ve got to get their heart, soul and mind locked into the way they need to wrestle every single match.”

After six matches, Iowa State (1-9, 0-4 Big 12) sat within five points of visiting Missouri (5-1, 1-1) with three winnable matches remaining — 174, 184 and heavyweight.

Both 174- and 184-pound matches went into overtime and were lost by Mikey England and Boaz Beard to drive the score to 19-8 in favor of the Tigers.

“They competed well, you saw the heart they had out there,” Sorenson said. “They kept taking it, you saw how tired they were and they just sucked it up and they went out and competed. Hopefully this pushes our guys a little harder.”

Wrestling in place of Chris Spangler, who sustained a concussion at the Midlands Championships in late December, England went down to the wire against the Tigers’ Patrick Wright at 174 pounds.

“At 174, I thought we outwrestled the guy in good positions and off our attack we let him score,” Jackson said. “There’s still a lot of work to be done. Our guys have still got to get tougher and decide they’re not going to lose.”

England lost in a 4-2 decision to give Missouri a comfortable eight-point lead in the dual with three matches left.

“I knew that with the lineup that we had coming up that we had potential to win the dual as long as our guys wrestled well,” Sorenson said. “Home crowd, two overtime matches, you’ve got to pull out and get some of those leg shots.”

Even though it was considered improvement from the Cyclones’ 31-10 loss to Missouri on Dec. 18, the critical situations in crunch time still proved costly for the young team.

“We’ve got two overtime matches hanging in the balance, one guy that gets behind [his opponent] to win the match with 10 seconds left and we get weak on the finish,” Jackson said. “That was a match we should have easily won.”

That match — the 184-pound match, which pitted No. 11 Beard against No. 16 Mike Larson — was decided in a tiebreaker period where Beard gave up an escape and a takedown to lose in a 5-2 decision.

“I let him control tempo and let him control the ties, let him control the match and that’s what happens when you lose,” Beard said. “For me, I just need to suck it up, I need to get my conditioning back.”

Despite the subtle positives of not getting blown out as it had in the past, Iowa State could not take this loss with an optimistic smile.

“Those are the hardest matches to live with, the ones that you don’t feel [the wrestlers] went out there and put their all into it,” Jackson said. “We didn’t get it done.”