Call it a miniature version of the NCAA Championships. Call it Iowa State’s best tournament-style test in recent years. But by any name, this weekend’s Cliff Keen Invitational will help the Cyclones prime themselves for a strong run once the NCAA Championships roll around this spring. 

 “I think it’s great,” ISU head coach Kevin Dresser said of the Las Vegas-based event in the wake of Sunday’s 18-14 dual-meet loss to arch-rival Iowa. “I think it’s an opportunity for us to maybe see — what is there, 16 or 15 of the (other) top-20 teams? So throw the seeds out, throw the rankings out. It will be helter-skelter by the time we get back and they’ll all be shuffled.”

 The Cyclones’ 2021 NCAA champion and second-ranked 165-pounder David Carr will likely face a handful of top-ten wrestlers in the event. He’s fresh off a pair of top-five wins and expects this weekend’s bouts to help his team sharpen its skills as the calendar interminably wins toward March.

 “I think it’s gonna be fun for our guys to wrestle that tournament style and get those reps in,” said Carr, a four-time All-American who boasts a 97-3 mark in his career. “It’s like a practice, you would say, for the national tournament and other big tournaments. So I'm really happy that we’re going (there) this year. It’s gonna be a great experience. I think it’s gonna be great for our young guys and good for everybody.”

Five other top-10 wrestlers in Carr’s class will be vying for a title and if all teams bring their starters, a total of 176 ranked competitors will take the mat at some point in the event. That’s roughly half of all of the ranked wrestlers in the country, so for Carr and several other Cyclones, it will serve as a relatively early-season measuring stick unlike any other.

“We’ve got to scrap with some studs,” Dresser said. “All in all, a good thing.”

And not just for Carr. ISU’s lineup is well-set for the time being and grapplers such as Anthony Echemendia — the Cyclones’ 141-pounder who took #1 Real Woods of Iowa to sudden victory last weekend — should turn the Cliff Keens into a powerful proving ground, as well.

“Every time I compete, I’m just gonna keep getting better and I’m just gonna let it fly,” Echemendia said. “Because after all the time I spent off the mat, I just realized this is what I love. I don’t want to do anything else (other) than wrestling and every time I get the chance, I’m just gonna put it out there.”

Looking Back At The Cy-Hawk Dual

Dresser reiterated that he and his staff could have possibly challenged a couple of split-second officiating decisions during the loss to the Hawkeyes. At 141, Echemendia scrambled to take down Woods late in regulation, but the possible winning flurry was cut short when one official tapped the other on his shoulder to indicate time had expired. At 157, ISU’s Cody Chittum appeared to have completed a takedown in the final moments that would have won his match, but an official review determined there wasn’t enough evidence to reverse the call on the mat.

 “(Those calls) didn’t go our way — and that’s not throwing the officials under the bus at all,” Dresser said. “(Those are) split-second decisions they’ve gotta make and I obviously got a chance to watch both of those afterwards, and I think at 141, I’ve got a lot of questions about that. There (were) some mechanical issues that happened at the end of that match that affected the officials, just human error. I think the assistant ref hit the had ref too early and it changed the outcome of that a little bit and even if we wanted to review it it was not reviewable at that point. At 157, they wanted to look at it really quick. I asked them to look at it. They looked at it. I was very surprised with what they came back with, but at the end of the day, that’s what they came back with.”

Driving Carr

Iowa State’s top wrestler is ready and waiting for all comers as he seeks to win his second NCAA title this March. He won't get to face two-time defending champ Keegan O’Toole of Missouri in Vegas, but he will have to vanquish a few other top guys throughout the event if he’s to get to that 100-match win mark and beyond.

“I just think that we can continue to build,” Carr said. “You’ll get to see how good some of our young guys are and the weekend is a good test to see — you’ve got a lot of ranked guys at 125, heavyweight, and across the board. So it’s an awesome opportunity. It’s gonna be a lot of fun."