The ISU wrestling team gave intrastate rival Iowa its best shot, but once again it wasn’t quite enough, as the Hawkeyes earned a 23-17 victory Friday in Iowa City.

The Hawkeyes, ranked third in the nation, won the final two matches of the meet by fall and major decision to defeat the Cyclones for the 26th straight time before 12,145 fans in Carver-Hawkeye Arena. The Cyclones, ranked fourth, fall to 7-1 while the Hawkeyes are now 3-1.

“I’m not disappointed with this performance; I’m disappointed with the result,” said ISU wrestling coach Bobby Douglas. “Our guys wrestled well. I think Iowa deserves credit, they wrestled smart and they wrestled well.”

Going into the meet, each team was heavily favored in four matches with the closer matchups being 149 and 174. It worked out that way as both teams won the matches in which they were favored but the Hawkeyes were victorious in both of the big swing matches.

At 149, Mike Zadick scored the only takedown of the match with 36 seconds left to win a 4-1 decision over Billy Maldonado. Gabe McMahan scored five takedowns to a defeat Perry Parks, 12-6, at 174.

“It was an exciting meet; everybody competed hard out there,” said Iowa wrestling coach Jim Zalesky. “It kind of went according to what was on paper. We knew we were favored in some big matches and they were heavily favored in some matches.”

Recording the four ISU victories were Joe Heskett at 165, Cael Sanderson at 184, Zach Thompson at 197 and heavyweight Mark Knauer. Sanderson improved to 91-0 in his career with a first period pin of Jessman Smith.

With the 91st consecutive victory without a loss, Sanderson moved past Oklahoma State’s John Smith and now only trails Dan Gable who won his first 100 matches of his career at Iowa State.

The Cyclones fell behind 10-0 after three matches but fought back to gain a 17-13 advantage with two matches remaining. Jody Stritmatter, ranked second, put the Hawks ahead 19-17 by pinning Jacob Moore and was followed by an 19-7 major decision win from defending NCAA champion Eric Juergens at 133 to close out the meet.

The Hawkeyes started the meet at 141 with a 13-4 major decision win from top-ranked Doug Schwab. Zadick and T.J. Williams added decisions wins to give the Hawks the early 10-0 cushion.

The Cyclones cut into the lead at 165 Heskett cruised to a 17-1 technical fall win over Ben Shirk. Heskett dominated Shirk, piling up over five minutes over riding time and eight near-fall points.

“I definitely think that he had a strategy not to get pinned,” Heskett said. “But at the same time I felt good out there and racked up the points. I wanted to score a lot of points; that was our philosophy before the meet.

“That’s what it’s all about. It’s about taking charge. As one of the captains, I felt the role to go out there and pin him, and if not get the tech fall.”

The Hawkeyes countered with McMahan’s victory at 174, but Sanderson’s pin closed the gap to 13-11. Sanderson made it look easy as he scored a takedown to start the match and put Smith on his back. Smith fought for about 30 seconds before giving up the pin.

In the Cyclones’ victory against Central Michigan Dec. 3, Sanderson was mad at himself for getting the first period pin, but that was not the case Friday.

“Tonight was a little different,” Sanderson said. “It was a tough dual, the score was close, so I needed to pin my guy. That’s a move I’ve done a lot, that roll-through kind of thing and I set it up pretty well I think.”

At 197, Thompson held off Ryan Fulsaas for a 6-4 win, while at heavyweight, Knauer defeated Randy Fulsaas 8-4.