Dresser’s ISU squad 4th at nationals

Named Big 12 Coach of the Year

Humboldt native and Iowa State University head wrestling coach Kevin Dresser led his Cyclone squad to their highest NCAA National tournament finish since he arrived in 2017.

Dresser led the Cyclones to a fourth-place finish in the team scoring with 68.5 points. Penn State won the team crown with 172.5, followed by Cornell (72.5) and Michigan (71). Iowa was fifth with 67 points.

At the national tournament last weekend in Kansas City, Cyclone senior David Carr won his second national title with a 9-8 victory over Penn State’s Mitchel Mesenbrink. Carr becomes the 17th Cyclone to win multiple national titles and the first since 2010 (Jake Varner, 2009-10).

Carr, who entered the tournament seeded No. 4, saw his path to the title include wins over No. 1, 2 and 5 seeds. Four of his five opponents in the tournament were All-Americans. Carr won a national title in 2021 and was third in 2022 and runner-up in 2023. He finishes with a career record of 120-5.

When Dresser took over the program in late-February of 2017, ISU had just finished 57th at the NCAA championships. ISU’s previous best finish was in 2010 when the Cyclones were third with 75 points. ISU had four wrestlers place on the podium, its most since 2009.

Of its nine NCAA qualifiers, ISU’s other placewinners include Evan Frost, sixth at 133 pounds, AnthonyEchemendia, fifth at 141 pounds, and Casey Swiderski, seventh at 149 pounds.

At the Big 12 Conference tournament earlier in the month at Tulsa, OK, ISU won its first conference title since 2009. The Cyclones crowned two champions and finished with 152.5 team points, the fourth-most in a tournament in league history and most ever by an ISU team in the Big 12 era.

The team title marked ISU’s 18th conference championship in program history and snapped Missouri’s two-year winning streak in the tournament. Kevin Dresser was named Big 12 Coach of the Year for the second time in his seven-year tenure at Iowa State.