Without any music playing from the sound system, a rare occurrence at the regularly-rocking Hilton Coliseum, a band of seven teary-eyed seniors lined up for the final time, silently vowing to make their last dual meet at Hilton a memorable one.

Iowa State (13–2, 4–0 Big 12) finished its season with a 34–7 dual meet victory against conference rival Nebraska (9–11, 0–4).

“I think we’re heading in the right direction,” said coach Kevin Jackson, whose Cyclones won eight of the dual’s 10 matches. “We’ve got a couple weeks to hammer out some strong training and put a razor-sharp edge on these guys heading into [the Big 12 Championships] and springboard that into the NCAA Tournament.”

Andrew Long began the season finale by pinning Nebraska’s David Klingsheim with a fall time of 6:43 to pin six points on the board early for the second-ranked Cyclones. The redshirt freshman from Creston struggled in the second period, giving up nearly a minute of riding time to his Nebraska foe, but a turn of the tides in the third period gave him the opportunity to get Klingsheim turned for the fall.

Senior Nick Fanthorpe followed Long’s astonishing feat with his final match under the roof of Hilton by recording the fastest pin of his career against the Huskers’ C.J. Napier with a fall time of 2:32. Fanthorpe’s pin gave him his 97th career victory in a cardinal-and-gold singlet.

“It’s hard to believe it’s our last time wrestling in Hilton,” Fanthorpe said. “But you just try to take advantage of the moment.”

Senior Mitch Mueller recorded an early takedown on Dustin Payne to take a 2–0 lead with less than a minute ticked off the clock of the 149-pound match. Another nearfall, a two-point nearfall and a three-point nearfall later, Mueller found himself leading the true freshman, 9–1, after one period. Mueller made the match look like child’s play against Payne, preceding to record another three-point nearfall and three more takedowns en route to an 18–3 technical fall with a fall time of 4:34.

“He’s finally wrestling to his true potential,” Jackson said of Mueller. “He came in as a freshman with high expectations, and he hasn’t accomplished his goals yet, he hasn’t become an All-American yet. I know he’s capable of being an All-American and putting himself in a position to challenge for a national championship, and I think he’s finally gotten back the confidence that he probably lost a little bit over the last couple of years.”

Mueller’s technical fall and sophomore Andrew Sorenson’s 18–5 major decision over Tyler Koehn put the Cyclones ahead, 21–3, at the five-match intermission.

Duke Burk took to the mat for the last time of his two-year career as a Cyclone staring down the fourth-ranked wrestler in the nation, Stephen Dwyer. After an impressive tiebreaker pin by Burk over Missouri’s Dorian Henderson at last week’s 28–10 dual meet victory over the Tigers, the crowd of 3,507 in attendance was expecting a similar situation against a tougher opponent at the 174-pound match.

Dwyer went after Burk early, acquiring over two minutes of riding time en route to a 4–1 lead after the first period. Burk continued to struggle, receiving a call for stalling, giving Dwyer a 10–2 lead with 0:35 left in the third period.

Despite a courageous effort, Burk fell to Dwyer by a major decision of 11–2, giving up over four minutes of riding time in Dwyer’s favor.

“We’re a little disappointed,” Jackson said of Burk’s match. “I thought Duke competed hard, but [Dwyer] was that much tougher.”

“Welcome to the Show” belted through the speakers as Iowa State’s Jake Varner and Nebraska’s Craig Brester took the mat in the marquee matchup of the dual. Varner and Brester, both undefeated and ranked first and second in the nation, respectively, have squared off four times previous to their match yesterday, with Varner holding a 3–1 advantage in the series. Varner had beaten Brester in the championship match of last year’s NCAA Tournament by a decision of 2–1 to win the national title at 197 pounds.

Brester scored an early takedown, which was quickly followed by an escape by Varner to notch the score at 2–1 in Brester’s favor at the end of the first period.

Varner stared down the third period tied at 2–2 with riding time against his favor, with Brester making the escape from the down position to go up 3–2.

The electrified crowd jumped up after Varner scored a takedown with 0:38 left to go in the match to go up 4–3. After an escape by Brester to tie the score at 4–4, Varner had successfully been able to shake Brester’s riding time to under a minute to prevent the extra point being awarded to his archrival. The juggernauts headed to a sudden victory period that would decide who would receive the No. 1 ranking at 197 pounds.

After nearly notching a takedown early in the overtime period, Varner failed to solidify his position on top of Brester to force both wrestlers to restart in the middle.

With 0:03 left in the sudden victory period, Varner took Brester down to finalize the victory over his archrival for a fourth time, 6–4.

“I just kept wrestling,” Varner said. “I wasn’t going to let him beat me like that, scoring a takedown and not wrestling the rest of the match, and I just kept wrestling after that takedown. I knew I had to ride him for a little bit to get that riding time off and it went into overtime and I knew I was going to get my takedown then.”

Varner’s victory handed Brester his first loss of the season while improving his record to a team-best 24–0.

Iowa State heads south to Norman, Okla., to compete in the Big 12 Championships on March 6.