After stumbling to a fifth-place finish at USA Wrestling’s 2020 Senior Nationals Oct. 11, Iowa’s Jaydin Eierman returned to Coralville, Iowa, and Xtream Arena for his matchup with 2016 Olympic gold medalist Vladimer Khinchegashvili in the Hawkeye Wrestling Club Showdown Open.

Eierman trailed as the opening period came to the close, but he started the second period with a flurry of takedowns, quickly flipping the script from 1-0 to 4-1 in his favor. Once Eierman grabbed the lead he never let it go, winning 4-1.

“[Eierman] wrestled a good match,” Iowa wrestling head coach Tom Brands said. “A little redemption there for him. This match meant a lot to him, getting back in the saddle so to speak after getting fifth in [Xtream Arena] a few weeks ago. He wasn’t stagnant, even though Khinchegashvili got to him a couple times.”

2020-21 will be Eierman’s sixth year of collegiate wrestling after transferring to Iowa from Missouri. Despite all of his experience, Eierman recognizes how special his win Sunday evening was.

“So far, yeah, it is my biggest [career] win,” Eierman said. “I’m not going to let that solidify who I am. I need to go out there and get one of my own. [Khinchegashvili] was an Olympic champ in 2016. I’m going to have to work hard every single day up until the Olympic trials to be where I need to be to get my Olympic gold medal. So, I feel like as long as I keep going every single day, it’s going to get better and better.”

Eierman wasn’t the only Hawkeye competing in the main card Sunday evening. He was joined by five other wrestlers slated to be in Iowa’s 2020-21 collegiate starting lineup.

RELATED: Hawkeyes return to the mat in Showdown Open undercard

Two-time national champion Spencer Lee was the only other Hawkeye to reign victorious at Xtream Arena. Lee pinned Zach Sanders in one minute and 27 seconds in the main card’s opening bout.

“Spencer Lee even came off the mat and said he felt a little funny,” Brands said. “I said, ‘You felt a little funny? You haven’t wrestled since March. You four-point hip-tilted that guy and pinned him. Because they only gave you two on the hip-tilt from feet to back you had to pin him to get off the mat.'”

Lee’s teammates struggled for the remainder of the main card. Senior Austin DeSanto was handily defeated, 11-3, by three-time All-American Bryce Meredith.

Two-time Big Ten champion Alex Marinelli was narrowly bested via 5-4 decision by four-time NCAA All-American James Green. Marinelli’s 5-4 loss was the result of a remarkable comeback effort as the senior Hawkeye tried to dig himself out of a 5-1 deficit for nearly the entire second period.

Senior Michael Kemerer fell to Wolfpack Wrestling Club’s Tommy Gantt, 10-6. Following Kemerer’s match, sophomore Tony Cassioppi was beaten swiftly via 10-0 technical fall by two-time NCAA champion heavyweight Nick Gwiazdowski.

“If you’re the enemy of the Hawks, and somebody is watching this, you can pile on with that stuff,” Brands said. “That’s not where we come from. We’re coming from, that’s your first event in a long time. Yeah, we got to be better, but these matches were set up for a reason. We were exposed. I wasn’t thinking we were going to get exposed, but we were exposed, and that’s our first time we competed.”

The NCAA has yet to officially announce when the 2020-21 collegiate wrestling season will start, but according to Brands, events like the Hawkeye Wrestling Club Showdown Open will help the Hawkeyes get ready to wrestle when the time comes.

For now, the Hawkeyes are focused on improving and preparing for a national championship run in 2020-21.

“We got a lot to work on,” Lee said. “That’s what was going through my head. We’ve got a lot of time do it. Everyone’s going to get ready, and I have a lot to work on, everyone does, the whole team. I think it’s a good eye-opener for us that we got to get ready for each competition no matter who it is, who you’re wrestling, just like it’s the biggest match in the world. We’ve got time to get ready for it. We’re going to be ready for the season, and we’re going to be ready to be 2021 national champs.”