There was never a doubt in Steve Bosak’s mind four years ago that attending a school outside of the State College area was the right decision for him.
Now, Bosak is even more sure that his decision to attend Cornell University was the right one.
‘I love Cornell wrestling, I love our coaches and alumni and our fan support,’ Bosak said. ‘There hasn’t been a day I regretted it.’
In his redshirt junior season for the Big Red, Bosak is wrestling at 184 pounds — 24 pounds heavier than he did in high school — but wrestles pretty much with the same style he did as a Little Lion. It’s that intensity that has him set to enter his third postseason at Cornell, where he will enter the EIWA Tournament as the No. 1 overall seed March 3-4 at Princeton.
Bosak was recruited by all of the Ivy league schools after a pair of state runner-up performances and four District 6 championships at State High, as well as by UAB and Penn State. However, Bosak knew right away he wanted to go outside the area.
‘I talked to PSU a little bit, but I wanted more out of college where I would leave State College and start out new,” Bosak said. “I love Penn State, but I just wanted to get away from home, and growing up a mile away from campus, Penn State just wasn’t for me.’
After an injured back forced Bosak to take a medical redshirt his freshman year, he immediately was inserted into the starting lineup his redshirt freshman year at 184 pounds, going 29-15 while qualifying for his first NCAA Tournament. However, it was during the 2009-10 campaign that Bosak really hit his stride in the college ranks.
‘I grew a lot because I was late bloomer in high school, and once I got to college, I grew a couple of inches and gained some muscle mass,” Bosak said of his bump up from his high school weight of 160 pounds. “So it really made 184 a good fit.’
Bosak opened the 2009-10 campaign with 18-straight victories and parlayed his early success into a second place finish at the Southern Scuffle and a perfect 4-0 performance in the 2010 NWCA National Duals that helped Cornell win the event. His regular-season success certainly carried over to the postseason, as Bosak took runner-up at the EIWA Championships before earning his first All-America honors with a fourth-place finish at the NCAA Championships.
‘I’ve always had that confidence that I could be great, and last year I was All-American … just the fact that I am getting great experience wrestling better guys, and some of top guys in country, it’s really helped me grow,’ Bosak said.
Bosak wasn’t satisfied with a fourth-place finish, though, and came back even stronger this year, posting a 26-3 regular-season record. His three losses were nothing to sneeze at, either, as he lost to top-ranked Joe Leblanc of Wyoming, Penn State’s second-ranked Quentin Wright and 13th-ranked Ben Clymer, of Hofstra.
‘I had some great matches and I had some down ones, and what I can do is take positives away from winning, and the matches I lost, look at film and critique some things and make adjustments,’ Bosak said.
‘I feel great, and I’m ready to go … At this time of the year, it’s the light at the end of the tunnel, and I want to reach there and reach my maximum performance for the postseason.’
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