The ISU wrestling team takes its fresh No. 2 ranking into their last dual meet road trip of the season this weekend when it visits Virginia Tech (6-10, 1-3 ACC) at 6 p.m. Friday, followed by a trip to Virginia (7-8, 2-2 ACC) for an 11 a.m. meet Sunday.

“These are going to be two good duals just before we jump into the Big 12s,” said assistant coach Dylan Long.

These two duals will be a tuneup for the second-ranked Cyclones (11-3, 4-0 Big 12) as they head into an off week and then the Big 12 tournament on March 3, but it’s important for the Cyclones to polish what they need to work on after a huge win over previously second-ranked Missouri last Sunday.

“Right now they’re just working on nothing real new, but they’re just going over areas where we kind of saw they needed a little more improvement on,” Long said. “Basically just trying to keep them fresh and just [working] on our regular position.

“They’re all getting to where they need to be. It’s just a little bit of fine tuning here and there,” Long said.

The Cyclones believe they can’t afford to have a let down and need to keep the pace up against a couple of lesser opponents.

“You still have to take the matches the same as if we’re wrestling Missouri or Minnesota or someone like that,” said Jake Varner.

“It’s good matches to have before Big 12s.”

According to InterMat rankings, both Virginia and Virginia Tech have only one wrestler in the top 20 individual rankings and both wrestlers are at 184 lbs.

The Cyclones’ sixth-ranked Jake Varner (184) will have to work against an old high school opponent in Virginia’s 20th-ranked Rocco Caponi.

Varner took it to Caponi with a technical fall decision in his junior year of high school, and Varner defeated Caponi in Greco-Roman wrestling, but not in folkstyle or freestyle.

Before Varner takes on Caponi, he will have to face 19th-ranked Steve Borja of Virginia Tech.

Varner said he is looking forward to the competition.

“They should be good matches,” Varner said. “It will be fun,”

He knows he has to keep the good offensive mindset that head coach Cael Sanderson is trying to instill in his young team.

“If you’re not offensive, you’re kind of not giving it all you’ve got out there and that’s what he wants us to do – leave everything on the mat,” Varner said of Sanderson.

Sanderson and his team believe now is the point in the season where they need to start peaking.

“We know we’re doing the right thing,” Varner said. “Other guys have peaked way before now and that’s where it comes down to the NCAAs, you can see guys that are ranked fall off and get put out of the tournament.”

“It happens every year. Cael knows what we have to do that’s right and that makes it fun.”