Bruising surrounded the left eye of wrestling coach Cael Sanderson – just “part of the fun” from Thursday morning’s practice.

During the same workout session, Sanderson also picked up a lump on the back of his head, which he said hurt worse. The bumps and the bruises were acceptable, though, as long as the third-ranked ISU wrestling team comes through Sunday at Oregon State.

“I try to get these guys to fight,” Sanderson said before practice Thursday afternoon. “Whatever it takes.”

Workouts with eighth-ranked Duke Burk (174) and 13th ranked Mitch Mueller (149) were to blame for the black eye and the sore head, respectively. The two juniors will match up with the Beavers’ two ranked seniors on Sunday afternoon – 16th ranked Heinrich Barnes (149) and eighth-ranked Kyle Bressler (174).

Oregon State has a 3-5 dual record this season, but the young team has an experienced coaching staff led by former Iowa coach Jim Zalesky.

“They were in here last year, but they are a much better team than that,” said Sanderson of Iowa State’s 40-0 win over the Beavers last February. “They’ve got a good team, and we know they have one of the best coaches in the nation. But we’re going to focus on ourselves and the way we train.”

Sanderson voiced his displeasure with the intensity and mind set of several members of the team on Monday. He said each wrestler has areas to work on, but that the Cyclones (8-2) have had a good week of practice.

“And a lot of that is just basically the coaches standing over the top of the wrestlers and making sure they’re doing exactly what we want ‘em to do,” Sanderson said, “and the guys have really responded very well, and that’s exactly what I was hoping for.”

Second-ranked Nick Gallick(141) said the team has been working on increasing their intensity, along with other individual improvements.

“We had some close matches that should have gone our way and they didn’t,” said Gallick, 20-3 on the season. “And the coaches felt changes needed to be made, and they did.”