A record crowd gathered to watch No. 4 NC State wrestling take on No. 9 Oklahoma State in perhaps the biggest home opener in school history, a highly anticipated top-10 bout.

However, when the dust settled, the Cowboys (5-0) proved to be the more dominant team, winning seven of 10 bouts and denying the Wolfpack (9-1) much reason to cheer for most of the night.

“First of all, I thought it was an awesome atmosphere and people showed up — that’s NC State Wolfpack people with pride in athletics,” said head coach Pat Popolizio. “On the unfortunate side of things, our guys didn’t have their best performance tonight, probably got out-wrestled in certain positions.”

The match marked the first sellout in program history, breaking the previous attendance record set in the team’s win over North Carolina in 2020. With a nationally-televised, top-10 matchup on hand, this looked like the perfect storm for another classic, and Wolfpack nation was amped up and ready to go in the Old Barn.

“It was awesome, you could tell how loud it was,” said redshirt senior Trent Hidlay. “It speaks a lot to what our program is and what we’ve been able to do the past few years to get such a huge gathering here.”

While the Wolfpack-faithful appeared hungry for a landmark win, it was the Cowboys that started strong. Oklahoma State’s No. 20 Troy Spratley kicked off the 125-pound bout with a takedown to secure an early lead. In round two, Spratley got his second takedown, dooming No. 15 redshirt junior Jakob Camacho to a loss. 

The 133-pound match featured a pair of top-five wrestlers — The Pack’s No. 5 redshirt junior Kai Orine and No. 3 Daton Fix. Like the first bout, Oklahoma State started fast with a pair of takedowns early. Fighting an uphill battle to come back, Orine struggled to get Fix to the ground. A late takedown by Fix gave the Cowboys a major decision and a 7-0 lead. 

Facing an early deficit, the Wolfpack desperately needed something to break its way. No. 4 junior Ryan Jack found himself in a dogfight with No. 7 Tagen Jamison in the pivotal 141-pound bout. In the third round Jamison began to pull away with an escape, taking a late 4-2 lead. 

With the seconds ticking away and the crowd roaring, Jack stunned his opponent with a critical takedown at the edge of the mat. With less than ten seconds remaining in the round, Jack contained Jamison and secured a 5-4 win, much to the delight of the home crowd. 

“As soon as he let up, my thought was just ‘go’,” Jack said. “I knew I could get to his leg and I knew he was finished if I got to his leg.”

Riding off the spark from his teammate, No. 4 sophomore Jackson Arrington continued the momentum with a dominant 10-0 major decision over No. 21 Jordan Williams in 149, tying the team score 7-7 and making the match interesting.

With the score now even, the Pack found itself in position to seize the momentum of the match when No. 5 junior Ed Scott faced No. 24 Teague Travis in the 157-pound bout. While the first two rounds were a defensive struggle, the final round provided plenty of action and both wrestlers left everything on the mat. During the round, Travis earned a reversal for two points before Scott picked up a takedown. A second reversal by Travis clinched a 7-6 Cowboy victory. 

Facing a tall task against No. 3 Izzak Olejnik, sophomore AJ Kovacs fought hard, keeping the score tied through the first period, but fell behind 4-1 in the second period and ended up losing an 8-3 decision in the 165, causing the Cowboys to increase their lead to 13-7.

Once again, the Wolfpack found itself lagging behind Oklahoma State. With four matches remaining and a six point deficit, No. 32 fifth-year Alex Faison faced a must-win against Brayden Thompson in the 174-pound bout. Even after three rounds the wrestlers battled an additional three, leading to a one-point win for Thompson due to a riding time point that broke the tie. 

No. 12 freshman Dylan Fishback got out to a quick start against No. 3 Dustin Plott in 184 with a 3-1 lead through the first period, but that lead quickly evaporated when Plott used a dominant second period to take an 8-4 lead into the third. Fishback battled back, managing to tie the score 8-8, but Plott closed it out for a 12-8 win and made victory for the Cowboys nearly a lock.

Despite Oklahoma State building a comfortable lead, No. 2 redshirt senior Trent Hidlay remained hungry for a win and eviscerated Jersey Robb in the 197-pound bout. The Wolfpack star posted a whopping six takedowns, tossing Robb around like a ragdoll. The end result was a 20-4 tech fall.

“You got to do your job even with the duel meet out of reach,” Hidlay said. “Put on a good face and compete as hard as you can — it’s a disappointing performance by our team… We can choose to get better from it or let it hurt.”

Needing a miracle, No. 15 junior Owen Trephan took the mat for the heavyweight bout against No. 12 Konner Doucet. The bout was low-scoring but became exciting towards the end when Trephan scored an escape to tie it up 1-1 with 30 seconds remaining. However, Doucet took the win from riding time, solidifying the 22-12 win for the Cowboys.

Obviously, this wasn’t the result the Wolfpack was looking for, especially considering it marked the program’s first home loss since 2019. However, this match against a national-championship contender gave the team an opportunity to look itself in the mirror and assess how it can get to where it ultimately wants to be: competing for a national championship.

“We know we’ve got a lot of room to improve,” Popolizio said. “If you’re going to take losses, you just don’t want them to be the last weekend of the season…We wanted to be tested; we set our schedule really hard this year for a reason, so every time these guys get to compete, they know where they’re at.”

NC State will have one more match to prepare for conference play when it travels to face Hofstra on Sunday Jan. 7 at 11:30 a.m. before opening conference play at Pitt on Friday Jan. 26 at 7 p.m.