Hilton Coliseum played host to the Harold Nichols Open for the first time Sunday. The ISU Wrestling Club [corrected from: Cyclone Wrestling Club] got its first taste at Division I opponents at the meet as well.

“I thought it was a really great experience,” said freshman Dylan Nelson. “This was my first meet where you wrestle against [Division I] competition. It was a step up.”

The club wrestling team competed against schools such as St. Cloud State, Grandview, Iowa Western Community College, Northern Iowa and host Iowa State. It was the only club competing at the open invitational meet, which takes place once a year.

“A couple weeks ago, I decided to ask [ISU coach Kevin Jackson] what he thought of us competing at this tournament, and he thought it would be a good idea to see how our guys wrestled against Division I competition,” said coach Zachary Byrnes.

The team is coming off a strong performance, where some wrestlers competed at Luther College on Saturday.

“We did pretty good for how early it is in the season,” Byrnes said. “[Saturday’s] tournament and [Sunday’s] tournament are going to be a couple of the tougher meets we’re going to be competing in this year.”

Until its next tournament in early December, the team will practice on becoming quicker, lighter and more aggressive.

“It’s student-ran, so every now and then we’ll switch who’s in charge,” said sophomore Zach Cooper. “One day we’ll do arm and feet stuff and the other we’ll do upper body stuff. It all really depends on who’s there.”

Training for wrestling takes different technique than some other sports, however.

“When we get to practice, we know the techniques, so we go right into live wrestling,” Nelson said. “We’ll do two minute goes on our feet. And usually we try to get into group of two or four and do a match or two.”

One component that Byrnes, Nelson and Cooper all agreed on was that getting Division I level of competition under their belts was great experience.

“With this being a club just getting started, we have a widespread level of talent that’s joining the team, but they still have a that great experience of being able to wrestle here at Hilton,” Byrnes said. “We also had a kid that was [wrestling] at 197 that pinned a kid that was being recruited by Division I schools.”

Byrnes mentioned that there’s a lot of talent out there, and he’s excited to see what comes out of this group of guys.

The next tournament for the ISU Wrestling Club is Dec. 9 at Northwest Missouri State.