In the middle of Carver-Hawkeye, Iowa State made its presence known despite a 19-18 Iowa win.

The focus for Iowa all season has been on wrestling a full seven minutes, something that was lacking on Saturday. The Cyclones took advantage of the Hawkeyes late in multiple matches.

“Everything fell into place for [Iowa State],” No. 4 165-pounder Alex Marinelli said. “We’ve got a lot of potential… we’ve got to wrestle seven minutes, we’ve got to wrestle the whole match.”

For the entire meet, Iowa had the on-paper advantage in eight of the 10 matches. Iowa State still managed to pull off four upsets.

Things didn’t start off going Iowa’s way. Starting off at 141, No. 16 Max Murin was handed his first loss of the season thanks to a late takedown by Ian Parker.

No. 11 Pat Lugo’s match against No. 12 Jarrett Degen went back and forth through two overtime periods, with Degen coming out on top after an escape and a takedown.

Down 6-0 as a team, No. 13 Kaleb Young and Marinelli more than made up the points by breaking Iowa State’s upset streak. Young took his match easily, 8-3, and Marinelli – while leading 13-2 – pinned his opponent in 4:45 to put Iowa up, 9-6.

The lead lasted only one match. At 174 – a weight where Iowa can’t afford injuries with the loss of All-American Michael Kemerer for the season – Myles Wilson came off the mat with a limp and a loss by injury default.

Iowa State’s third upset came after the break at 184. No. 11 Cash Wilcke was defeated by a late takedown from unranked Sam Colbray to lose, 7-6.

Iowa returned an upset for a shift in momentum at 197 with No. 11 Jacob Warner on the mat for the first time this season.

In the first period, Warner tweaked his knee. He then continued the entirety of his match with a limp, all the way down to the final seconds. A takedown to close out the third period gave Warner a win against No. 5 Willie Miklus and tightened the Cyclone gap to three.

“It felt good, I’ve been in big stages my whole life so I didn’t want to psych myself out or anything,” Warner said. “I felt no pressure on me and was able to wrestle my match.”

Enter Sam Stoll. The heavyweight made the decision to wrestle by himself and informed head coach Tom Brands of it on the edge of the mat.

“If we’re losing it’s kind of hard to sit back there and do nothing, especially my last state week,” Stoll said. “So I guess I ran out there and Tom met me in the middle and he said ‘I don’t want this, you’re not going,’ and I said ‘It’s my last one, I’m going.’ He gave me a good slap in the face and I went.”

Stoll took his match, 5-1, and the No. 1 heavyweight was followed up by No. 1 125-pounder Spencer Lee.

Lee earned bonus points with a major decision, ultimately giving Iowa the points it needed for the win. After Iowa State’s final upset of No. 10 Austin DeSanto, the Hawkeyes had given up half of their matches but escaped the meet with a 1-point win.