The last home meet of your career can do strange things to you, as it did to senior wrestlers Austen Palmer and Aaron Holker Sunday during the Cyclones’ doubleheader against Fresno State and North Carolina State.

Palmer, who describes himself as “not an emotional guy,” said he almost teared up when he stepped onto the mat with his parents to be honored by the crowd.

Holker, who is used to running straight to the locker room after a match, didn’t realize he should do something different after his final match. The coaches had to yell to him to stop and wave to the fans who would never see him compete at Hilton again. And then, while trying to wave and head toward the lockers at the same time, Holker almost ran over Linda Douglas, head coach Bobby Douglas’ wife. “That was pretty embarrassing,” he said, laughing.

What wasn’t embarrassing were the two seniors’ final performances. They both won both their matches; Palmer decisioned his opponents from Fresno State and North Carolina State, 12-6 and 3-1, respectively. Holker barely had a full match combined — he got a technical fall on his first opponent with 34 seconds left in the match and pinned his next opponent only a minute and a half into the match.

The rest of the team also did well, recording two technical falls and four pins in the two meets. They handled Fresno State, 34-8, and came out half an hour later to beat North Carolina State, 30-16.

“There’s room for improvement but we’re making improvement,” Douglas said. “I’m pleased with the results. We needed this to get some momentum going into the conference [tournament].”

Not only did the team wrestle two successive meets in the same day, but Douglas said the team has kept up the intensity in practice as they prepare for the upcoming Big 12 Championships.

“We’ve been working on our conditioning and it showed tonight,” Douglas said. “Fresno [State] took a little bit out of us, but we wrestled well. There’s no complaints.”

By the time Fresno State could put any points on the board, the Cyclones won five straight matches, including a pin by 125-pounder Jesse Sundell and technical falls by Holker and co-captain Zach Roberson. Heavyweight Scott Coleman and 149-pounder Nate Gallick added 7-3 and 8-2 decisions, respectively.

The most exciting match of the day belonged to backup 174-pounder Nels Matson. He and Fresno State’s Sean Sheets were tied at 4-4 until Matson scored what should have been the winning takedown with only 30 seconds remaining. The crowd then gasped as Matson accidentally let Sheets go. But Matson easily took his tired opponent down again and even scored back points to come out on top, 10-5.

A depleted North Carolina State team fared a little better against the Cyclones, giving up two forfeits but scoring a fall and winning three straight matches, including Dustin Kawa’s major decision over the Cyclones’ 11th-ranked Nick Passolano, 13-5. But two pins by Holker and Roberson, as well as decisions by Palmer and Coleman put the match out of reach from the Wolfpack.

The pair of victories improved the Cyclones’ final overall record to 8-10. In two weeks, Iowa State will compete at the 2003 Big 12 Championships to earn seeds for the NCAA Championships.

“It’s still hard to gauge the team,” Douglas said. “We’re fighting to get out of the cellar. Hopefully, we’re out of the cellar and the conference [tournament] will show that.”

But Douglas said the seniors’ victories were encouraging signs.

“This was their last chance they had to perform in front of the fans,” Douglas said. “I was happy they were able to do well.”