Like clothes in the dryer, the Penn State wrestling team's emotions went through a lot of twist and turns in the 2005 Pennsylvania State Dual Championship's final match against No. 8 Lehigh.

Penn State's senior heavyweight Joel Edwards ended the emotional roller coaster, when he held the Mountain Hawks' junior Tom Curl down for the final 30 seconds of their match. Edwards' effort completed a spectacular eight-point comeback, and the No. 12 Nittany Lions defeated Lehigh by the smallest of margins, yesterday 18-17. The victory gave Penn State the title in the second annual competition.

"It happened exactly how I wanted it to," Penn State sophomore Phil Davis said. "We knew it was going to be close. We believe we're a top-three team, that was just the first step on the road to getting there."

The road began with the Brad Pataky-Matt Fisk matchup at 125. They were tied 5-5 after the first period and neither gained a substantial lead until Fisk took down Penn State's Pataky late in the match to seal it. The same type of back-and-forth contest continued for most of the other matchups, with Lehigh taking three of the first five to build up a 14-6 lead.

The Mountain Hawks were seemingly well on their way to winning the match especially with the nation's seventh-ranked wrestler at 174, Travis Frick, up next. But, Penn State junior James Yonushonis had a different idea and turned the match on its head.

Yonushonis' takedown of Frick in the first sudden-death period gave the Lions the shot in the arm they needed.

"That was unexpected," Edwards said. "Not just to us, or the fans, but in James' eyes, too. When he went out and beat Frick, that just tells us we can take these guys."

Neil Bretz continued the snowball started by Yonushonis, in his match against David Helfrich at 184. Bretz replaced sophomore Chad Unger, who was the replacement for the injured Eric Bradley, and after being down early, Bretz almost fought back but lost the match by one. The loss didn't deflate Penn State's momentum heading into its last two matches.

After Bretz's loss, the Lions found themselves down eight points and in need of some dominating victories just to pull even with the Mountain Hawks. With the crowd seeing the doom ahead, Davis stepped up and put energy back into Rec Hall.

"Phil's just a guy you can count on," Edwards said. "I feel that me and him together, him at 197 and me at heavyweight, we can roll through every competition we run into."

Davis got the crowd stirring as he lined up for the beginning of the second period and began wiggling his fingers as he awaited Lehigh's Paul Weibel. But it was his out-of-nowhere pin 20 seconds into the final period that brought the crowd to its feet.

"I never really know when I have 'em," Davis said. "He just kinda flipped the right way, and I made the right move."

The air that Davis's fall put in the Lions balloon almost came out when Edwards was nearly pinned early in his match. Edwards battled back and wrestled his best match of the dual. He put the final nail in the match with his takedown of Curl with a little over 30 seconds left.

"When I took him down in the last period, I could just feel that he was dead," Edwards said.

"I knew if I held him for 30 more seconds -- we do this all the time in practice -- I could take him out. When I took him down, I knew he was dead. He was looking up at the clock, lying on the mat. I knew we had the match."

Dual wrap-up

Before their dramatic victory over Lehigh, the Lions had a relatively easy time with their other two opponents in the dual.

Penn State defeated University of Pittsburgh-Johnstown 31-10 and then disposed of York College 47-3.

The upset of the dual was in the first round matchup between Div. I Clarion and Div. III York.

York defeated Clarion 25-15 and sealed the match with a dramatic pin at 197 by Matt Chizanowskii.