The wrestling mats were out on the floor Thursday night at Rec Hall, but those who usually compete on them were serving as referees, scorekeepers and fans.

This was a night for those wrestlers who do not have quite the talent level to compete at a school in the Big Ten wrestling conference, but decided to come to Penn State anyway and continue to work on the beloved sport they played in high school for love of the game.

The Intramural wrestling tournament, which concluded Thursday night after two weeks of competition, drew 125 combatants split into a fraternity division and an open division. Each division contained nine weight classes.

Mike Gulotta of Acacia, who walked away with a 7-3 victory in his championship match against Dave Guez of Beta Sigma fraternity in the 184-pound weight class, is used to coming out on top, considering he is a four-time IM wrestling champion.

"The tournament was pretty competitive," Gulotta said. "The guy who I faced was a runner-up in my weight class last year so I knew it was going to be pretty tough."

Gulotta, who has been wrestling since he was four years old, was happy to win his fourth title, especially because he gets to put another trophy in the case at his fraternity house.

"Intramural sports are a big part of my fraternity house and I was able to help out the house and get another team victory," Gulotta said. "It helped me out a lot that many of my brothers were in the tournament so we were able to work out together. Even the guys who did not wrestle are extremely supportive, such as Ralph Bert, a brother in the house who serves as a personal trainer."

Gulotta's victory will allow Acacia to keep its significant lead over Delta Sigma atop the overall fraternity intramural points standings. The two-time defending champs had a 718-588 point lead coming in to the wrestling tournament. Adam Wilder of Delta Sigma won the 149-pound title to make sure Acacia couldn't pull away further. The new standings have not yet been released.

Tony Reese, a brother of Sigma Chi fraternity, also wrestled brothers from his house and made sure he was in aerobic condition to prepare for the match. Reese turned in the most impressive performance in the championships as he clinched the 141-pound title by pinning Shawn Haines of Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity in just 11 seconds.

"My strategy was to score early and get the match over with before I got too tired," Reese said. "I was just really aggressive. I consider this win pretty big because I wrestled the last three years but haven't done any better than runner-up until this year."

Tom Lovins, director of recreational sports, was impressed by the matches.

"There were some pins, but overall the matches were highly competitive and most of them went the distance," he said. "We had a kid who had no wrestling experience whatsoever who talked to his friends for advice and then we had players who were state and district champions, so we tried our best to arrange competitive matches."

Joe Smith, captain of the wrestling club and winner of the heavyweight open division, also agrees that the matches were very competitive and forced him to put forth his best effort. However, his work with the wrestling club allowed him to have an edge on the rest of the field.

"The wrestling club practices three times a week so that helped me prepare for the match," he said, "but my strategy going in to the championship was to shut the other guy's offense down and work from there."

The other champions in the fraternity division were Rick Tosti of Sigma Pi (133), Tom Hayes of Beta Sigma (157), Ryan Bailey of Tau Epsilon Phi (165), Nate Myers of Phi Sigma (174), Andrew Shearn of Phi Kappa Theta (197), and Bob Mattiford of Zeta Beta Tau (Heavyweight).

Jeremy Woodcock (133), Mike Sellers (141), Tom Dredge (149), Rich Scherzberg (157), Damien MeAntor (165), Josh Colegrove (174), Eric Alwine (184), and Tawfik Goma (197), each won championships in the open division.