The last time the Penn State wrestling team made the long trip to the Sports Pavilion on the University of Minnesota's campus over three years ago, Penn State wrestling coach Troy Sunderland looked on in horror as the eventual national champion Golden Gophers crushed Penn State 37-3.

Sitting there that day, watching his team suffer, Sunderland wondered how his squad would ever beat Minnesota. The two teams were seemingly light years apart. A lot has changed since then. Penn State's gotten a lot better and Minnesota's down somewhat, but that didn't seem to matter Friday night when the No. 9 Gophers (11-7, 5-3 Big Ten) thoroughly dominated No. 11 Penn State (15-4, 5-3) in its season finale, winning 28-12.

The road to victory was always going to be uphill for Penn State. With Joel Edwards, the regular starter at 197 pounds, resting an injury, reserve Adrian Rivera moved up from 184 to face defending national champion Damion Hahn. The result was predictably grim, with Hahn winning by fall in 4:18.

But the Lions' Josh Moore balanced those six points on the other end. Moore wasted little time in taking the action to Andrew Dominques, turning him and picking up the fall in 1:39.

As Sunderland had expected, the victor would be the team that took control in the toss-up bouts and that team was clearly Minnestoa. At 125, Bobbe Lowe used an early takedown to grind out a 3-2 victory over the Lions' Adam Smith. That loss means that Smith now faces the grim reality of going into the Big Ten tournament unseeded.

At 141, Penn State's DeWitt Driscoll lost a wild 16-11 decision to Tommy Owen. Driscoll fought back from an early deficit to take a 10-9 lead late in the second period. Driscoll actually had Owen on his back and nearly pinned. In the third though, Owen stormed back, taking Driscoll to his back, to secure the win.

Those two losses, coupled with James Woodall's loss at 157, were just too much for Penn State to overcome. But maybe the night's most disturbing episode came at heavyweight, where No. 2 Pat Cummins lost for the fourth time in four weeks after starting the season undefeated.

Cummins' opponent, No. 6 Cole Konrad, used takedowns in the first and third periods, while preventing Cummins from taking him down, to win 6-4.

"I'm a bit concerned about Pat after tonight's bout," Sunderland said. "It seems like he's forcing some things. He just needs a chance to recover and get his emotions back in order. Without a doubt he can still win [a national championship]."

That may be Sunderland's remedy for his entire team. While the chance to finally beat Minnesota in a dual meet may have passed, there is still the chance to beat a lot of other teams in two competitions that may be slightly more important: the Big Ten and NCAA championships.

"We're all feeling kind of bad now," Sunderland said. "I'm going to give them a couple of days off to get refreshed and get ready for Big Tens. It's been an exciting season and we're looking forward to the postseason. We'll have our kids ready."