Between 1982 and 2007, the Cyclones never won an outright conference championship, tieing once and finishing second 11 times.

In the past two years, the ISU wrestling team has reversed the trends of history, winning back-to-back Big 12 titles. Saturday afternoon in Lincoln, Neb., the No. 3 ISU wrestling team will compete for its third consecutive conference title — a feat never accomplished in 84 years of conference affiliation.

“I wasn’t aware of that, actually … That’s cool though,” head coach Cael Sanderson said. “Those are the things we want to do. We want to keep raising the bar and setting a new standard.”

Entering the post-season, Sanderson and the Cyclones seek to redeem months of hard work and experience for championships and satisfaction. Thus far, the 2008-09 season has been marked by disappointment and injuries, although it can be redeemed with a successful post-season.

Iowa State lost five championship matches and a large lead in the final round of the Dec. 29-30 Midlands Championships, ceding the team title to No. 1 Iowa.

The Cyclones (15-3) also lost a dual to the defending-NCAA Champion Hawkeyes, as well as matches against second-ranked Cornell and fifth-ranked Missouri. Two weeks into January, the team’s performance and attitude prompted a press conference rebuke from Sanderson, who said the team didn’t show enough “fight.”

Junior starters Nick Fanthorpe (133) and Duke Burk (174) each missed nearly a month of competition due to injury. Despite the adversity, Sanderson said he didn’t believe this has been an especially trying season.

“It’s just — every team is different. Every team has their strengths and weaknesses, and different obstacles will hit each team at different times of the year,” Sanderson said. “We’ve known from day one that we’re going to be in the hunt at the end. Things don’t always go as planned.”

The 10 ISU starters have a combined 45 losses so far this season. Only two wrestlers — top-ranked Jake Varner (197) and David Zabriskie (HWT) — went undefeated during the conference dual season, though Zabriskie has two losses to Big 12 wrestlers in open competition.

The Big 12 Conference has just five schools with wrestling teams, which means the top-three seeds in the tournament need just one victory to reach the finals. Nine of 10 Cyclones will likely be seeded in the top three, with Burk, the fifth seed, being the only exception.

In such a small tournament, each wrestler’s first match has a large effect on the team race. Sanderson compared the intensity of semifinals in the Big 12 Tournament to that of the quarter or semifinal round at the NCAA Tournament.

“You’re wrestling a highly-ranked opponent, pretty much, unless you’re dominating the weight class or something like that,” Sanderson said. “A lot of our guys have had guys that have beaten them throughout the year. So we’ve got to go out there and enforce our will. And have some fun.”

Fourth-ranked Nebraska and fifth-ranked Missouri are viewed as the Cyclones’ top threats in the team race. The strength of both teams’ lineups is in the middle- and upper-weights, while the Cyclones are evenly balanced with a wrestler ranked in each weight class.

Eleventh-ranked Oklahoma State and 13th-ranked Oklahoma are also evenly balanced and talented, with a combined 15 wrestlers ranked in the top 20.

Iowa State has four returning Big 12 Champions: Fanthorpe, Nick Gallick (141), Cyler Sanderson (157) and Varner (197), though Varner moved up a weight in the off-season.

The No. 1 ranked heavyweight Zabriskie finished second last year, but his 2007 individual championship decided the team title.

“I don’t think it’s going to come down to me again,” he said. “I think as a team we’ve been starting to distance ourselves from other teams in the Big 12. We’re definitely going to go in there with expectations high and try to pick up that third title and enter NCAAs with even bigger expectations there.”