Getting back on the mat has been a long time coming for Iowa heavyweight Sam Stoll.

After a long offseason in which he suffered a gunshot wound in June and was charged with lying to police about the incident, he found himself back in the spotlight at Carver-Hawkeye when Iowa beat Iowa State, 19-18, Saturday.

Stoll, who is ranked No. 1 at 285 pounds despite not wrestling a match all season, didn’t take long to get re-acclimated. In fact, it only took about 10 seconds.

The senior heavyweight walked out through the fog and fire from the Carver tunnel with a warm welcome back from a rowdy Hawkeye crowd on their feet after his long hiatus.

Stoll scored a takedown just seconds after the whistle blew before downing Iowa State’s Gannon Gremmel, 5-1, to tie the dual at 15 after Iowa fell behind early.

To make things even more impressive, though, neither Stoll nor Iowa head coach Tom Brands planned on him wrestling.

Right before the heavyweight match was set to take place, Stoll decided he would be the one taking the mat for his last Cy-Hawk dual.

“I had no intentions on going and I guess it’s hard when we’re losing a big dual like that,” Stoll said. “If we’re losing, it’s kind of hard to sit back there and do nothing, especially in my last State week.

“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.’ Then I said, ‘It’s my last one. I’m going,” And he gave me a good slap in the face and I went.”

After the dual, Brands took the liberty of inviting Stoll into a press conference because he wanted fans to hear how Stoll found his way onto the mat.

“This was not about his individual glory – this was about a team effort,” Brands said. “How we won the dual meet, you have to give a lot of credit to Sam Stoll… Hawkeye fans, that’s your boy: Sam Stoll.”

Although he didn’t rack up another takedown after his first early score, Stoll applied pressure on Gremmel throughout the match.

Shortly after his takedown in the first period, Gremmel got hit with an unsportsmanlike call, giving a free point to Stoll.

After a Gremmel escape, Stoll started the second period in the bottom position. He escaped for another point and proceeded to ride Gremmel throughout the third period, picking up another point for an astounding 4:07 of riding time and tying the dual.

“Maybe that first period, I kind of blew my wad a little bit – I thought I was going to get a pin early,” Stoll said. “Obviously, I would like to score more points, maybe get a fall, but it didn’t happen. But he didn’t sniff me one time, so it was a solid match.”

The Hawkeyes faced a 6-point deficit after Iowa State’s Sam Colbray topped Cash Wilcke with a takedown at the buzzer.

But after redshirt freshman Jacob Warner – ranked No. 11 – topped No. 5 Willie Miklus, 5-4, thanks to a reversal with six seconds left, Iowa found itself within striking distance.

After Stoll tied it, Spencer Lee gave Iowa 4 more points with a major decision over Alex Mackall.

The sequence of Warner, Stoll, and Lee proved to be lethal, and it was much needed after a rough start to the dual for the Hawkeyes in which Iowa lost two matches with time expiring.

“[Iowa State] did everything did everything they could; everything fell into place for them,” said 165-pounder Alex Marinelli, whose pin boosted Iowa’s final score with bonus points. “We got good teammates in the room that are family and I love them the same even if they lose. I know we got a lot of potential. Tom will tell you that we got to wrestle seven minutes.”