A day that started with a celebration ended in heartbreak for the Gophers wrestling team.

Coach J Robinson took center stage at Williams Arena and was honored for his 25 years at the program's helm before Sunday's dual against No. 2 Iowa with the Big Ten regular-season title on the line.

Hampered by another injury to 197-pounder Sonny Yohn, the fifth-ranked Gophers fell just shy of completing a furious comeback, losing 19-12 before an announced crowd of 7,527.

"We had a chance to win it; we didn't do what we needed to do," Robinson said after his Gophers lost to Iowa for the fourth consecutive year. "It's that simple."

The Gophers (15-4-1, 6-1-1 Big Ten) trailed 13-12 entering the final two matches, and the fourth-ranked Yohn, who was wrestling in only his second match since Dec. 11 because of a knee injury, jumped out to a 3-0 lead.

"We were down by a point and Sonny's winning, so it felt really good," Gophers redshirt freshman Kevin Steinhaus said. "It went south after that."

The second-to-last match was knotted at 3-3 after eighth-ranked Luke Lofthouse escaped Yohn from the bottom position to start the third period. Seconds later, the two grappled until they fell out of bounds near the Iowa bench. Lofthouse headed toward the circle. Yohn stayed on the ground clutching his left knee.

About 10 seconds passed and Yohn trotted back to the center, but during the final 30 seconds, Lofthouse grabbed Yohn's left knee and slammed him to the ground for the winning takedown. Then the referee blew his whistle and trainers tended to Yohn's right knee.

He made it back up to finish the match but suffered a 7-4 loss that essentially extended the Hawkeyes' unbeaten dual streak to 77, the longest in NCAA history.

"He's got some bad knees," Robinson said of Yohn, "but part of it is he just got back, so his conditioning isn't where it's supposed to be."

The Gophers needed a wide margin of victory in the heavyweight match to tie or win, but Iowa's 15th-ranked Blake Rasing upset eighth-ranked Tony Nelson 4-2.

"We're just disappointed," Gophers senior Scott Glasser said. "It was really ours right there."

Glasser and Steinhaus were the main reasons the Gophers had any chance in the dual. Iowa jumped out to a 13-3 lead with the only Gophers victory coming on a come-from-behind, overtime decision by redshirt freshman Danny Zilverberg (149). In the match before that, second-ranked Mike Thorn (141) lost to Iowa's third-ranked Montell Marion in the day's first upset.

The Gophers cut the deficit to 13-12 by winning the first three matches following intermission, including an upset by the 15th-ranked Glasser at 174 pounds and Steinhaus' victory at 184 that came via takedown in the final 12 seconds.

After the dual, Robinson took a moment to reflect on the standing ovation he received before the dual began. Members of the first Gophers team Robinson coached in 1986-87 joined him in the middle of the ring before the match began.

"You don't think about it much, but I guess 25 years is a long time," Robinson said. "That's the coolest thing of the 25 years is all the things that the individuals have done and just having been able to be just a small part of the whole thing."