The Iowa State wrestling team finished the dual meet regular season in fine fashion on Sunday by hammering Northern Iowa 38-6.

The meet began at the 174-pound weight class where UNI jumped out to an early 3-0 lead when No. 16 Randy Pugh decisioned Ben Perkins 8-4. However, the Panthers’ lead was short-lived as ISU dominated the ensuing five matches to take a commanding lead.

Cael Sanderson notched his 31st win of the season by recording a 24-9 technical fall over No. 16 Ken Bigley to get the Cyclones on the board.

Cael Sanderson is the top-ranked wrestler in the 184-pound weight class and has yet to lose a match this season.

A very bizarre match followed as fourth-ranked Zach Thompson won a 4-1 match for ISU against No. 5 Tony Wieland.

After a second stalling point was awarded to Thompson, Wieland tossed his head gear in disgust, and UNI was subsequently deducted a team point for unsportsmanlike conduct. Thompson wrestled very methodically and scored all of his points on stalling calls against Wieland.

“I thought that Zach wrestled very smart and used a lot of tact in his match,” said head coach Bobby Douglas.

With the Cyclones ahead 8-2 following the deduction, heavyweight Mark Knauer extended the lead by recording a fall at the 3:56 mark over Kyle Hansen.

To make matters worse, the Panthers forfeited the 125-pound match to give ISU a commanding 20-2 lead.

Third-ranked Cody Sanderson pushed his record to 25-4 after defeating No. 7 Eric Keller 11-4. Cody Sanderson nearly recorded a major decision after scoring a reversal and getting two near fall points, but Keller was able to escape Cody Sanderson’s grasp with only one second remaining in the contest.

“Cody wrestled an outstanding match and so did Eric, but we caught him in a situation where he had to give up back points and that made a difference,” said Douglas.

Mark Rial was able to reduce the Panther’s deficit to 23-6 after scoring a major decision over Benjie Winegarden, but once again UNI was hurt by forfeiting the 149-pound weight class.

David Maldonado made the most of his final dual meet by stomping UNI’s Kevin Powell on senior day at Hilton Coliseum.

The eighth-ranked team leader dominated his match from start to finish and was able to record a 21-6 technical fall to increase the Cyclone lead to 34-6.

“Its been a good career for me, and the team and tradition at Iowa State is just great. I wish that we didn’t have to have a senior day, and we could just wrestle until we couldn’t walk anymore,” said Maldonado.

Maldonado was an NCAA qualifier last year and will be shooting for All-American status in his final season with the cardinal and gold.

“It’s time for David to step up and he knows that. We wanted him to have a real positive finish and he had one, so hopefully he uses this momentum going into the conference tournament,” said Douglas

ISU’s Joe Heskett showed why he is the No. 1 wrestler at 165-pounds by major decisioning Nate Lawrence 11-1. In a match that he controlled throughout, Heskett (30-0) nearly recorded a fall in the waning seconds, but a struggling Lawrence was saved by the buzzer.

Iowa State is idle this week but returns to action when they host the Big 12 championships in Hilton Coliseum on March 6. With tough conference foes including top-ranked Oklahoma State, the Cyclones will try to use the home crowd to their advantage.

“We wrestle three teams in the top five so I’m glad we’re at home and not on the road. The home court advantage comes with the fans, and I think if we get good fan support we will do a good job,” said Douglas.