When Cornell senior Steve Bosak hurried out to the raised platform in the middle of the Scottrade Center Saturday night in St. Louis, he had one thing in mind.
‘I wrestled him before, and lost, so I needed to get a little bit of revenge,’ Bosak told Flo Wrestling.
He, of course, was Penn State junior Quentin Wright, the defending NCAA national champion at 184 pounds who had beaten Bosak, 10-3, at the Southern Scuffle at the beginning of January.
But this time around, it was Bosak who was the aggressor for most of the match, and in a rare all-Centre County bout for an NCAA championship, Bosak extracted his revenge, dropping Wright, 4-2 on a late takedown in sudden victory to secure his first national title.
‘My goal was to go out there and be patient, and not make any mistakes,’ Bosak said. ‘Last year gave me motivation, and I told myself this year I could do it, and I did.’
Bosak and Wright were workouts partners in high school — Wright is a graduate of Bald Eagle Area and Bosak a State High grad. But once they turned rivals for seven minutes Saturday night, the friendship was silenced, at least for the match.
After Wright took a 2-0 lead on a slick roll-through to reverse Bosak, he escaped twice, once in the first period and once in the second period, to tie the bout at two. There was no scoring in the remainder of the second, sans the Bosak escape, or in the third period, sending the bout to sudden victory. For Bosak, it was the second overtime match in a row, as he beat Appalachian State’s Austin Trotman, 4-2 in the semifinals in overtime.
Wright was the aggressor for the early portion of the overtime period, but it was Bosak who got in on a good single leg shot, took Wright to his butt, and ultimately wrapped his hands around Wright’s waist for the decisive takedown.
‘I just got a shot and I finished it, it’s really unbelievable,’ Bosak told ESPN. ‘I have the greatest coaches in the world.’
The Centre County region may agree with that, as Bosak’s mentor and coach at Cornell, Rob Koll, won a PIAA title for the Little Lions and was an NCAA champion at 158 pounds for North Carolina in 1988. His father, Bill, was a three-time NCAA champion at Iowa State Teachers College (now the University of Northern Iowa) and served as Penn State’s wrestling coach from 1965-78.
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