CEDAR FALLS — Barry Weldon is the first to admit that he is not a big technique wrestler. And, at 5-feet 8-inches tall, he is shorter than a lot of the competition at 177 pounds.

But Saturday night, neither of those things mattered.

What did matter was that Weldon had worked his way into the final match of the NCAA Tournament.

He had taken on his opponent, fourth-seeded Mitch Clark of Ohio State, earlier in the season. That knowledge of Clark’s style — Weldon called him “a legger from hell” before their battle — allowed him to unleash.

“I’ve been wrestling tentatively,” he said of the matches leading up to the finals. “It’s hard not to be; it’s my style. As I’m going on, I’m opening up more. After I was an All-American, that’s like a load off. Now that I’m in the finals, that’s another load off.”

Preparation consumed Weldon. “I tried not to watch too many matches,” he said. “I went in the back of the locker room until after 150 was over. I just wanted to get away from it and drain the emotion off of it. I feel much better when I do it that way.”

Once on the mat with Clark, the Cyclone came off the whistle with two quick takedowns in the first period and kept Clark at bay throughout the second.

To start the third, though, Clark opted to cover Weldon, meaning a better opportunity to use his legs to his advantage.

After several seconds, Weldon untangled himself and latched back on to his opponent, scoring the reversal and putting himself up 6-2, the final score.

Weldon had earned a national title.

“I knew I was the better wrestler,” Weldon said after the match, “and if I just went out and wrestled, there was no way he could beat me. That was a moral victory for me.”

With the win, Weldon became Iowa State’s first 177-pound champion since Rich Binek won it in 1973.