Iowa takes down Oklahoma State, 30-7

The University of Iowa came out shooting, and gunned down rival Oklahoma State.

Top-ranked Iowa demonstrated its offensive ability, winning eight matches and whipping the No. 8 Cowboys, 30-7, on Sunday at Gallagher-Iba Arena in Stillwater, Okla. It was Iowa's most convincing win over Oklahoma State since a 31-3 victory in 1995.

'You win eight matches in Stillwater, Oklahoma,” Iowa Coach Tom Brands said in audio from a post-meet news conference distributed by the UI Sports Information Department, 'it's good to build on and we have to keep moving forward.”

The Hawkeyes appeared to move forward quite often in the dominant performance, reversing a trend of close matches and inconsistent offense. The Hawkeyes scored 21 takedowns, including eight in the opening period. They scored the first takedown in seven of the 10 bouts, turning around its performance in last week's win at Ohio State.

'We have a special team in the fact that we got reminders, but we didn't need them,” said Iowa's 125-pounder Thomas Gilman, who opened the dual with a 15-5 major decision over No. 9 Eddie Klimara. 'We came out and turned things around. I think we're turning a new page here in the season. We just have to keep rolling.”

Iowa rolled through the first half of the meet, getting decisions from Cory Clark at 133 and 157-pounder Mike Kelly. Josh Dziewa and Brandon Sorensen posted to exciting wins.

Dziewa trailed the entire match, surrendering two takedowns, but worked his way back. He whipped Dean Heil to his back in the final period, getting a fall in 6:27 to give Iowa a 13-0 lead.

Dziewa said he felt Heil was trying to cling to his lead as early as the second period.

'I was looking for that go-behind,” Dziewa said. 'He slipped up. He let that arm go.

'I could feel him breaking.”

Sorensen knocked off his second top-five ranked foe in a week. He scored the last six points of the match, including a takedown in each of the final two periods and a riding-time point, to beat second-ranked and NCAA runner-up Josh Kindig, 6-1.

Mike Evans (174) scored a technical fall and Nathan Burak (197) and heavyweight Bobby Telford capped the dual with decisions. Telford beat Austin Marsden, who is ranked as high as second nationally, 4-3.

Iowa outscored Oklahoma State, 26-17, in the final period and owned a 5-1 edge in riding-time points.

'We are the best conditioned team in the entire country and we felt it out there every match,” Dziewa said. 'We could see them fading and it's not because they were fading (but) we were making them fade.”

Brands said conditioning showed up on the scoreboard by wrestling a hard, offensive match. He stressed the importance of that factor. They demonstrated the philosophy of score early and often.

'When you put a guy on his heels a little bit with riding time against him and you're ending periods on top, that's where you want to be in tough matches, for sure,” Brands said. 'We have a lot of work to do. This is a good performance, but we have to keep building.”

Iowa hosts No. 13 Illinois on Friday at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, beginning at 7 p.m.