After being sidelined for the first two tournaments, senior Kenny Robertson looks to be regaining his form, which took him to the NCAA Championships last year.

The 174-pound weight class wrestler took three victories this weekend, along with junior Greg Perz. However, that was the only bright spot for Eastern, as Eastern lost all three matches Saturday at the Purdue Duals.

“Kenny’s getting his form back,” said head coach Ralph McCausland. “He gets better conditioning beneath him. Sometimes you hold back a bit after an injury and I think he’s working through that. Kenny’s where he was, maybe a bit ahead.”

Robertson won his matches against Purdue’s Jason Martin and Appalachian State’s Neal Martin, who is ranked 20th nationally, by decisions.

“Appalachian State has some very good players,” McCausland said. “The kid Kenny beat was nationally ranked. He scored when he needed to and did very good.”

His only pin was the quickest match of the meet, pinning Cleveland State’s Nate Kinetz in 15 seconds.

McCausland was talking to Eastern wrestler Billy Gallo at the time, so he did not even see the pin.

“He grabbed a hold of him and it looked good, so I just kept talking to Billy,” he said.

McCausland said Eastern’s quickest pin ever came from Copache Tyler, the heavyweight in 1984, at nine seconds.

Perz won his match against Purdue by decision and against Cleveland State by pin.

His match against Appalachian State was won by injury default.

“Their 197-pounder got injured and they bumped their 184-pounder up to 197 instead of wrestling me so I got the forfeit,” Perz said.

This was Perz’s first time wrestling since Monday. He had been sick all week and was not able to practice.

McCausland said Perz is already ahead of how he was wrestling last year at this time.

The only other Panther win came from freshman Lenny Grodoski against Appalachian State. He won the decision against Corey Hulsey 8-3.

“Against Appalachian State he just held great position, and when he had opportunities he capitalized on them,” McCausland said.

He also said Grodoski wrestled well against Sean Schmaltz from Purdue.

“I was a little disappointed about losing the first two matches and that got me fired up for the third match,” Grodoski said. “Wrestling that third match for the win gave me a bit of encouragement to get out of the slump I’ve been in lately.”

Grodoski also said some of the older players and coaches helped him out on his footing before his final match.

“The coaches have been helping me out a lot and so have the upperclassmen – Greg, Kenny and Casey Carrino,” he said.

This was the Panther’s first match after the Midlands Tournament on Dec. 29.

The Midlands was the only set of matches they had during Winter Break.

“It’s usually standard,” McCausland said. “It’s difficult to keep those guys here over break. They do need to step away from it. The standard is a match before finals and the Midland Tourney. It was pretty much standard.”

He said the week of practice before this dual was good, but was also a recovery week to get back into wrestling.

The Panthers will get one more week of practice before their home opener next Sunday against Indiana at Lantz Arena.