By Courtney Baumann
Carver-Hawkeye Arena will see the 81st showdown between Iowa wrestling and Iowa State on Saturday night.
The No. 3 Hawkeyes will battle the Cyclones for the Dan Gable Trophy, which was introduced in 2010 in honor of the two-time NCAA champion for Iowa State and the 15-time NCAA champion coach for the Hawkeyes. Iowa has won the trophy all five years so far.
Much like the recent results, the outcome of the rivalry has been rather lopsided. Iowa is 62-16-2 since the two teams began wrestling each other.
If anything, that gives Iowa even more fuel to keep the winning streak going.
“We like competition. Sometimes you have to remind the guys what was said in the past,” Iowa head coach Tom Brands said. “They’ve been very vocal about being able to knock us off or ‘The time’s coming,’ and we know it, and they know it, and that’s something I remember.”
Even without the reminder from their coach, Hawkeye wrestlers know the significance of the matchup.
Of the 10 wrestlers in the probable lineup for Saturday, six are Iowa natives — Thomas Gilman, Phillip Laux, Brandon Sorensen, Alex Meyer, Cash Wilcke, and Steven Holloway.
Three of them, Laux, Wilcke, and Holloway, will compete for the first time in the Cy-Hawk Series.
Perhaps the most notable of the bunch is Laux, who is in the lineup in place of two-time All-American Cory Clark. Laux, a junior, wrestled last weekend against South Dakota State as well.
“It’s exciting. We’re a Hawkeye State. I have a lot of friends who go to Iowa State, and this is a big dual, and it’s going to be fun to be a part of,” the Brighton native said. “I’ve gotta wrestle through positions, gotta come ready to go, gotta be stingy.”
Sorensen has been a part of two Cy-Hawk Series, going 2-0 against Iowa State. He will look to pick up his third career win against the Cyclones when he faces off with his probable matchup, Chase Straw. Straw is also a native of Iowa and is coming off an eighth-place finish at the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational last weekend.
Sorensen likes the idea that the record between the two teams is lopsided, and he wants to keep it that way.
“There’s going to be a guy in front of me that I have to go out and beat,” Sorensen said. “I have to do my job and score points.”
Although he doesn’t have one memory in particular that he looks back on, said he would always watch the matchup between the two teams when he was younger.
Much like his wrestlers, Brands’ favorite memories of Iowa vs. Iowa State wrestling came when he was young, watching the matchup on television in his basement.
“Those are my memories, my best memories. That’s how I was introduced to big-time wrestling,” he said. “Those are things that you have to realize that the whole, really, wrestling community is watching, and you have the chance to either be the highlight tape or make the highlight tape.”