The dual meet of the year is upon us, and this year’s Cy Hawk meeting is taking place in a sold out Carver Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City! Broadcast live on Big 10+. This is the biggest dual of the season thus far, and it features two outstanding teams with state bragging rights on the line. The dual meet features two top 10 ranked teams with 15 of the 20 starters ranked nationally. The 2nd ranked Hawkeyes host the 6th ranked Cyclones Saturday November 23rd at 6PM.
History: The Hawkeyes have dominated the series winning 69 of 87 meetings between the two teams. The Iowa Hawkeyes have also won 19 straight. The years meeting between the two rivals appears to be a good one as both teams have looked solid so far! 6 of the 10 bouts will be head to head ranked matches, while the dual could feature 3 top 10 matchups. The Hawkeyes are a perfect 3-0 on the season while the Cyclones are 1-1.
Don’t Miss: Ayala vs Frost at 133 will be a fantastic match. Drake has a high offense attack style, while Frost is a fantastic counter wrestler. Parco vs Echemendia is another outstanding contest.
Keys To Victory: The Hawkeyes are favored in 8 of the 10 bouts. So they just need to win the matches they are favored to win. Iowa State needs to pull a few upsets and score bonus points along the way. Many questions remain for the Iowa State line up. For instance; will we see Yonger Bastida or MJ Gaitan? So without any further ado let’s take a look at each match and I will do my best to give you a winner and team score.
125 #31 Kale Peterson VS Adrian Meza
133 Drake Ayala #7 VS Evan Frost #5
141 Ryder Block VS Zach Redding
149 Kyle Parco #4 VS Anthony Echemendia #7
157 Jacori Teemer #1 VS Paniro Johnson #11
165 Michael Caliendo #2 VS Connor Euton or MJ Gaitan #9
174 Nelson Brands #9 VS Aiden Riggins
184 Gabe Arnold #6 VS Evan Bockman #16
197 Steven Buchanan #1 VS Christian Carroll #20
285 Ben Kueter #11 VS Daniel Herrera
Conclusion: I see the Hawkeyes gaining victories at 125, 165, 174, 184, 197, and Heavyweight. 133, 149, and 157, are tossups in my opinion, and I favor the Cyclones at 141. It will be interesting to see how Paniro Johnson looks. He hasn’t wrestled a college match in over a year. If he is in shape, he is as tough as they come. Christian Carroll at 197 is very underrated. Last summer he scored impressive wins over Tony Cassioppi, Trey Munoz, and Jacob Warner. While Iowa appears to be heavily favored I expect Iowa State to show up and wrestle tough, Daniel Herrera has been very impressive thus far and I expect he will present Kueter with a few problems. Bockman and Arnold could be another fight to the finish. The 125 bout could also be closely contested. This will be a fun dual to watch, with so many tough battles. My prediction is a 22-9 victory for the Hawkeyes!