Quentin Wright's moment was set up with the roll of a die.
Both Cael Sanderson and Wisconsin coach Barry Davis elected to have a random draw to decide the order of bouts and a nine came up, meaning that heavyweight would start the night out and 197, Wright's weight class, would be the last to wrestle.
With Wright's pin at 1:24 in the bout over No. 20 Jackson Hein, he capped off No. 1 Penn State's 36-6 win over No. 19 Wisconsin and etched himself into Penn State history as the 27th Nittany Lions to reach the century mark.
Wright said that he was calculating in his head when his 100th victory was going to come up, hoping to get it in front of the home crowd.
“It's awesome to get it in front of the home crowd because they've been with me here for four years, watching me, following me and it's great to achieve moments with your family,” Wright said.
While the dual was clinched by the time Wright hit the mat, Wisconsin provided a stiff challenge before the intermission. They won two of the first five bouts as Connor Medbury defeated Jon Gingrich at heavyweight, 6-3, and Cole Schmitt defeated James English, 8-4, in the second tiebreak period.
In the bout of the night, redshirt freshman Jordan Conaway faced off against No. 3 Tyler Graff at 133 pounds. Down 8-4 with 29 seconds left, Conaway registered two takedowns to force a sudden victory period. In the extra period, Conaway picked up the winning takedown with 22 seconds left to win the bout, 10-8.
“I had some work to do, I knew he was kind of getting tired and slowing down a little so I just kept the pressure on and wore him out even more,” Conaway said. “It was getting a little easier takedowns.”
Penn State's David Taylor said even down by four with 30 seconds left, the Rec Hall fans thought Conaway was going to win the match, giving him the edge.
“The feeling wasn't that maybe he was going to keep the match close, it was that he was going to win the match,” Taylor said. “There's not many times when you wrestle a guy, down by three or four points, that you feel like you're going to win.”
The Lions entered the intermission up 13-6 before they took over in the second half.
James Vollrath started the second half of the dual with a 5-3 decision over Kalvin York. Vollrath started out hot, building up a 4-0 lead. With York threatening to mount a comeback, Vollrath went on the defensive to grind out the victory.
At 165 pounds, Taylor used a dominating first period to defeat Frank Cousins. Taylor registered four takedowns in the first 90 seconds and went on to register a 25-7 technical fall victory 6:22 into the dual.
After a Matt Brown 12-8 win by decision at 174 pounds over Scott Leigel and an Ed Ruth victory by forfeit at 184 pounds, Wright took the mat, lighting the crowd up with his pin.
With Wright now part of the 100-win club, Sanderson said the senior's goals go beyond that.
“He's looking to be a two-time national champion and four-time All American,” Sanderson said. “That's just one of the steps along the way.”
