Jon Reader gets chills whenever he thinks about the atmosphere of a dual meet against Iowa.

“It’s a competitor’s playground,” the senior 174-pounder said. “I’m just excited thinking about it.”

No. 21 Iowa State (4-0) will be facing off against No. 8 Iowa (4-0) at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City on Friday. The meet will be the 77th dual between the intrastate rivals in one of the most storied rivalries in collegiate wrestling.

Second-year coach Kevin Jackson will be leading his young squad into the harsh confines of Carver-Hawkeye Arena for the first time as the ISU coach. It’s a task that he feels will be an adequate simulation for bigger events down the road.

“We’re always trying to simulate the atmosphere that we’re going to face at the NCAA tournament,” Jackson said. “When you go to Iowa City to compete, it gives you that same type of atmosphere, that same type of feeling of anxiety and of excitement and of everything else that goes along with wrestling a championship match.”

However, pulling off a victory in a dual meet of this magnitude has the potential to become a memorable and beneficial experience for any young wrestler.

“For our guys to go in there and perform to their potential, nothing more, just to their potential would benefit them moving forward a great deal,” Jackson said. “I think it probably would be their biggest wins of their college careers if they can go out there and win.”

Iowa has won its last six duals against Iowa State. However, the Cyclones’ last dual meet victory against the Hawkeyes was at Carver-Hawkeye in 2004, where the cardinal and gold prevailed 19-16.

The Hawkeyes are going into Friday’s meet with 65 consecutive dual wins.

Gibson good to go, could get the start

Heavyweight Matt Gibson is back to full health after sustaining an injury that forced him to take a medical forfeit two weekends ago at the Omaha Open.

“Matt Gibson is 100 percent, full-go right now and his mind is straight and physically, he’s healthy as he has been all season long,” Jackson said.

Gibson, who is ranked 20th in the nation by InterMat, is 6-3 on the season with a 1-1 record in dual meets. Two of his losses came at the Omaha Open, the latter of which resulted from the medical forfeit in the consolation bracket of the elite division.

“I know he said that his shoulder bothers him,” Jackson said. “As a heavyweight, as long as he is, and as many shots that he takes, he’s going to get some pressure on that shoulder from time-to-time.”

Fellow heavyweight Kyle Simonson was given the starting spot in the Cyclones’ Nov. 21 dual victory over Old Dominion after defeating Gibson in a wrestle-off three days before the meet.

In the dual, Simonson defeated the Monarchs’ Grant Chapman by a 3-2 tiebreaker decision after giving up a last-second reversal that knotted the score at 2-2 after Simonson’s riding time was applied to the score to force a sudden-victory period.

With that win, Simonson improved to 13-1 on the season with a 2-0 dual record.

Despite having the decision of who to start come down to a wrestle-off two weeks ago, Jackson says this time it will come down to whoever he thinks is ready to go.

“It won’t come down to a wrestle-off,” Jackson said. “We’ll have enough of those as we move through the year.”

Ward returns after break from action

Jerome Ward is no stranger to a dual meet of this magnitude.

In last year’s dual against Iowa, Ward defeated Iowa’s Phillip Keddy for the first time in his career in a 5-3 decision in the 184-pound match to help fuel a comeback attempt by Iowa State. However, the comeback went for naught as the Hawkeyes held on to win, 18-16, at Hilton Coliseum.

This year, Ward will be facing a new challenge at 197 pounds against Luke Lofthouse, who is ranked 13th in the nation by InterMat.

Ward has had very few slipups this year, going 9-2 with a 2-0 record in dual meets. His only losses came to then-No. 3 Dustin Kilgore of Kent State and Wartburg’s Byron Tate in the championship matches of the Hokie Open and Cyclone Open.

“Basically I lost focus of what I needed to do,” Ward said of his two losses. “It got late in the day both times and I just didn’t compete. I let my mind slip and start to wander and that’s not conducive of winning.”

After receiving a weekend of rest and not wrestling in the Cyclones’ dual meet against Old Dominion, Ward heads into Friday night’s meet ranked 12th in the nation, sitting one spot above Lofthouse.

“He had a good week of practice last week,” Jackson said of Ward. “I’ll watch him over the next three days and that’s going to determine whether I put him out there on Friday.”

All eyes on Weatherman

Trent Weatherman has had his ups and downs so far this season, but the redshirt freshman will be heading into his first true test in a cardinal-and-gold singlet.

The 157-pound Maxwell native will be squaring off against Derek St. John, a two-time state champion at Iowa City West High School.

“He wrestles that ‘Hawkeye’ style, that push-pull,” Weatherman said of St. John. “You’ve just got to kind of accept that for what it is and just go out there and not worry too much about what they’re going to do but what we’re going to do to them.”

So far on the year, St. John is 4-0 with two major decisions and a pin with a fall time of 2:33.

Weatherman boasts an overall record of 9-5 and is 2-2 in dual meets on the season. However, his most recent dual meet victory, a 17-6 major decision over Old Dominion’s Chad Lowman, was shrouded in an intensity that may not have been as prevalent in some of his earlier matches of the season.

That intensity, Weatherman says, will be ignited by the climate of the state’s biggest event in the sport.

“I think the atmosphere is going to be more set for that kind of intensity,” Weatherman said. “It’s going to be a good atmosphere in bringing everything together and I’ve just got to wrestle my match.”