Matt Riley could finally breathe easily after walking off the cardinal and gold wrestling mat for the first time in his life.

The true freshman from Des Moines earned his first victory as an ISU wrestler during Iowa State’s 32-12 dual meet victory over Boston on Thursday night at Hilton Coliseum.

“Matt Riley went out there to dominate, he took a lot of shots, he got in on some attacks, he only won by a point or two, but he was out there trying to completely dominate the guy with offensive attacks and with motion and with wrestling,” said coach Kevin Jackson. “And I can live with that.”

Riley started in the down position to begin the third period of the 184-pound match tied, 2-2. After giving his opponent, Bran Crudden, 1:03 of riding time, Riley notched a reversal to give himself a 4-2 lead that would eventually lead to a diminished riding time for Crudden, giving the former D.M. Roosevelt standout the victory.

“I sort of wish it didn’t have to come down that quick,” Riley said. “I wish I would have dominated straight through the match, got my shots off, but a win’s a win and I’ll take it.”

Iowa State (3-0) won all but two matches against Boston (2-3) in its home-opening dual meet of the season.

The Cyclones immediately gave up six points in the dual after forfeiting the first match, due to an illness suffered by 141-pounder Chris Drouin.

The action began with decisions from Nate Carr Jr. and Trent Weatherman, but a 16-4 major decision from Andrew Sorenson got the crowd in a frenzy, the first Hilton had experienced from the wrestling faithful since Feb. 21.

“I never want our fans and our athletes and our team and our program to lose how we expect our athletes to compete and what we expect them to do out there,” Jackson said. “Even if he only would have scored three or four points, just the movement and the action and the aggressiveness is what we’re all about and what we’re trying to get everyone on our team to be able to do.

“So for [Sorenson] to go out there and establish the way Cyclones wrestle was very important whether he beats a guy in bonus points or not.”

At heavyweight, Matt Gibson was given the starting nod over Kyle Simonson after winning the first-place title at the Hokie Open last weekend, which helped him garner the No. 16 spot on InterMat’s top 20 rankings.

Jackson says Simonson is still in the hunt for the starting spot at heavyweight, but Gibson’s performance has given him the edge up to this point.

In the match towards the beginning of the third period, Gibson managed a takedown by keeping one of his legs in bounds as his opponent, Kevin Innis, scrambled to get completely out of bounds. Gibson says this was a conscious effort to take advantage of every opportunity to notch a takedown.

“It’s something we work on every day in the room,” Gibson said. “It’s something we hear every day, so when an opportunity comes up for a takedown you never want to let it pass. You want to do everything you can to get that takedown.”

Gibson maneuvered three takedowns, a two-point and three-point nearfall en route to a 14-3 major decision.

The very next match, Patrick Hunter pinned Bubba McGinley in 3:43 in his first-ever dual meet victory in a cardinal and gold singlet.

Iowa State continues its season this Saturday with the all-day Cyclone Open at Bergstrom Indoor Facility.