The Iowa Corn Cy-Hawk Series Dual was a spectacle Sunday night in Hilton Coliseum.

With the Big Ten not allowing non-conference duals a season ago due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was no Iowa-Iowa State dual in the fall of 2020 or winter of 2021.

But Sunday’s dual more than made up for lost time.

There was rivalry-passion and a true intensity in No. 1 Iowa’s 22-11 win over No. 13 Iowa State, that featured a major upset at 197 and multiple matches that were decided by one takedown. 

No love lost

You can call it hate. You can call it competitiveness. You can call it pettiness. 

Whatever your phrasing may be, there was plenty of it between Iowa-Iowa State on Sunday.

If you haven’t seen or heard what happened at the end of Sunday’s dual between No. 13 Iowa State and No. 1 Iowa, a major confrontation ensued in front of the Iowa State bench, which included the Iowa coaching staff getting in the face of the Iowa State coaching staff. 

And it wasn’t one thing that set things off, more so a culmination of things.

“You know, a lot of good competitive matches, and I think the other side doesn’t like to see this side, doing what we’re doing. So that’s probably why things ended the way they did. But that’s alright,” Iowa State head coach Kevin Dresser said.

“When there’s a bully in the playground, you got to hit the bully back. And so we had to hit the bully back a little bit tonight. They don’t like it, but that’s just how sports go sometimes.”

Iowa head coach Tom Brands said the ending of the dual had something to do with it.

“Two teams that want to win and a stall out at the end, we’re up 17 to 11 and the guy got stalled out of the dual, he got stalled out,” Brands said. “Of course, of course, there’s heated emotions.”

From the jump, this dual was different from most. 

In the 133 pound bout between Iowa State’s Ramazan Attasauov and Iowa’s (No. 2) Austin DeSanto, there was not one, but two double-stall calls. 

Very rarely will you see one double stall call in a collegiate dual, let alone two.

Following that, there were intense close matches at 149, 157, 174, 184 and 197,  all of which got the crowd more amped up, as the coaching staff’s were jawing back and forth at one another from their respective sidelines.

Bastida gets first signature win of ISU career

The biggest shocker of the night came at 197 when No. 24 Yonger Bastida faced No. 3 Jacob Warner. 

With the Cyclones trailing 17-9 in the dual, the Cyclones needed a win by Bastida to still have a chance of winning the dual in the final bout. 

And Bastida delivered. 

With a third period takedown, Bastida pulled off the upset over Warner with a 4-3 win, earning his biggest victory to date as a Cyclone.

“I think the case was you have to wrestle hard in the wrestling room and get in much,” Bastida said.

With Sunday’s win, Bastida is now 6-1 and has won six matches in a row. 

“I like at 197 that, you know, they had to play their ace, and we went out and beat their ace at 197,” Dresser said. 

To say the last calendar year wrestling for Bastida was difficult could be considered an understatement.

He moved to the United States from Cuba in December 2020 and had to learn folkstyle wrestling and adjust to a completely new area in the midst of a global pandemic.

He had a 4-4 record in his freshman year, but is now 6-1 this year.

“Well we’ve taught Yonger a lot of things, but I’m so proud of Yonger Bastida. He’s been over in the states now for 54 weeks exactly, he did not speak English, did not know one folkstyle rule,” Dresser said.

After the win, Bastida spiked his head gear in celebration, which deducted Iowa State a team point.

“We forgot to teach him the rule about spiking your headgear, we’ll teach them that or we’ll show them the video, but we didn’t teach them that rule,” Dresser said. “I turned my head so I didn’t see him spike it so I promise you he didn’t spike it to be disrespectful. That guy just doesn’t know all the rules yet, but I think we got a pretty special guy there, going forward.”

With Bastida winning a one-point match, he was the only Cyclone to win a match that was decided by one takedown or less, while the Hawkeyes won more of those kind of matches than the Cyclones did.

One-takedown matches went the Hawkeyes way

In Sunday’s dual, there were four matches that were decided by one takedown (two points) or less. 

The aforementioned Bastida was the lone Cyclone to win by two points or less, but the Hawkeyes were 3-1 in those matches.

Those three matches that the Hawkeyes won in that way, all have different storylines coming out of them. 

At 133, Attasauov was the clear underdog, being unranked despite being undefeated. He faced one of the top three wrestlers in the NCAA in DeSanto. But he hung tough with him and made it closer than some people might have thought coming into the match.

“We keep working hard, as a coach, you look for progress. But would you have thought Ramazan Attasauov was going to go down in the last 30 seconds with DeSanto? Did you think you would you do think that when that match started today?” Dresser said when asked about matches that could’ve gone the other way.

Two matches later, at 149, the debuting Ian Parker faced No. 9 Max Murin, who also debuted on Sunday and was a surprise name to be in the running before weigh-ins on Sunday, due to him being sidelined with injury for the first few weeks of the season.

Murin scored the lone takedown in the match, giving him the 3-2 win.

Lastly, there was one match that went to sudden victory and that was at 174.

No. 33 Joel Devine faced son of Iowa head coach Tom Brands, Nelson, and after both wrestlers only scored one point in the first three periods, it came down to sudden victory.

On the far edge of the mat, Brands was able to score the takedown and win 3-1.

“I liked how hard we fought, a couple places like 133 and 174, you know we had it right where we wanted to where we wanted to have them, and we just didn’t  get it done and pull the trigger,” Dresser said.

While these matches weren’t solely the reason that Iowa State lost its 17th dual in a row against Iowa, losing three matches by more than a major decision didn’t help by any means, these close matches, could’ve gone the other way and would’ve created a point swing.

And there’s no doubt that Iowa State was very competitive in this dual, but it wasn’t quite enough on Sunday.

If Iowa State scored just one more takedown in two of those three matches, it would’ve created a 12-point swing, which would’ve flipped the score from 22-11 Iowa, to 17-16 Iowa State and would’ve gave Iowa State its first win against Iowa since 2004.