The billing brought them in, but Iowa head coach Tom Brands knew the reasons why almost 13,732 people came to watch the Iowa-Iowa State wrestling dual, and after a dominating 24-6 win by his team, he promised the rivalry will have even more to offer.

“The matchups brought the crowd out, the buzz brought the crowd out, [Dan] Gable and Brands vs. [Cael] Sanderson brought the crowd out,” Brands said. “But in the future there is going to be more at stake. It’s not going to be about the coaching changes. It’ll be about athletes.”

On Sunday, Brands’ athletes dominated the intrastate enemies from the west in the first showdown between two first-year coaches.

The drama took a back seat to the action on the mat, as eight of the 10 matches were decided by two points or less. No. 6 Iowa won most of the close matches and claimed eight out of 10 decisions, in a meet that didn’t go according to plan for Sanderson.

After the meet, Sanderson struggled to find the positives from the loss. His four teams as a competitor in college never beat the Hawkeyes, and after Sunday, Sanderson is still looking for his first win over Iowa as a coach.

Iowa State now has to re-group before facing second-ranked Minnesota on Friday night in Ames.

“Well obviously we didn’t get the results that we expected,” he said. “Our effort is that, our conditioning looked great. We were pushing them all over the mat. We’re making good progress . It’s time to look ahead.”

Mark Perry (165) stole an overtime victory from Trent Paulson to start the meet, setting the tone for a day of just-miss efforts from Sanderson’s Cyclones. Down 4-1 to start the third period, the second-ranked Hawkeye junior earned an escape and was awarded a questionable takedown with 13 seconds left that sent the match into overtime.

Perry won a scramble with the fourth-ranked Cyclone in overtime and won the match.

“A couple of key situations he couldn’t pull off, that’s kind of how the whole dual went,” said freshman 125-pounder Nick Fanthorpe.

Cyclone wrestlers downplayed the momentum factor of the Hawkeye win at 165, but Sanderson disagreed.

“I think that was a big deal,” Sanderson said. “Gable was flipping us the bird across the mat. I think that’s pretty good. It shows you that was a big match.”

The dual went sour after that match for the Cyclones (2-1 overall), as Iowa’s Eric Luedke won another controversial match at 174 pounds, un-ranked Dan Erekson (197) upset ninth-ranked Kurt Backes, and Iowa State lost two 6-5 matches.

Jake Varner (184) and Cyler Sanderson (149) were the only two Cyclones to win their matches.

“It was a lot of little things, little things that make the big difference,” Cael said. “There was no question we were ready, we were ready to go. Like I’ve said before, we want one thing. We want our guys to fight. That’s it. Fighting means giving your best effort every time. And for the most part, we got that.”ÿ

Alex Tsirtsis (141) clinched the dual for Iowa with a 4-1 victory over Iowa City native Mitch Mueller. After Cyler won a 9-8 decision, the setbacks continued as freshman Ryan Morningstar upset top-ranked Trent Paulson, 3-2.

Fanthorpe’s 6-5 loss summarized a dual that was decided by inches and seconds.

“We were real close in a lot of opportunities but we just weren’t able to pull some of them off,” Fanthorpe said.