CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — Quentin Wright was nearly prophetic last week when asked about a potential Southern Scuffle finale with lifelong friend and former State College High standout Steve Bosak.

The two were on opposite ends of the Scuffle bracket, but Wright’s own self confidence and faith in his buddy — now ranked No. 4 in the country at 184 pounds for No. 3 Cornell — was quite evident, saying then “It’ll be another really good match against two really good opponents.”

By 7:30 p.m. Monday, No. 5 Wright and Bosak had banged heads in a particularly physical, bloody championship bout inside the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s McKenzie Arena that ended with a 10-3 decision for Wright and a friendly embrace between the two. It was the first Scuffle title for the Penn State junior and fourth individual championship of the evening for the Nittany Lions who won the tournament handily.

“I’m happy for Quentin because he had a couple of rough matches in the fall semester,” Penn State associate head coach Cody Sanderson told the Penn State Sports Network. “It’s never easy to have those kind of matches, especially when you’re defending national champion and people start asking questions. But we saw glimpses of him, the Quentin Wright we saw at the national tournament.”

Overall, the Lions got a look at just how dangerous they can be in these tournament situations.

Prior to the 165-pound bout, Sanderson gazed across the mat in the direction of Minnesota wrestler Cody Yohn. As Penn State’s David Taylor stepped onto the mat, Sanderson’s eyes met Yohn’s and Sanderson got a pre-match premonition that Taylor would soon relay — in force — to his opponent.

“I knew it was going to be a rough match for the Minnesota guy,” Sanderson. “David does what David does.”

And Taylor, the top-ranked wrestler in the country at 165 pounds, didn’t disappoint, needing just 2:34 to turn Yohn to his back to secure a win by fall in the 165-pound championship. Taylor’s win put the exclamation point on a dominant performance by the defending national champs, clinching the team title outright for the Nittany Lions after Penn State shared the championship with Cornell last season.

No. 5 Penn State ended its two-day run with 191.5 team points, 14 more than second-place No. 3 Minnesota — the only team that has beaten Penn State in a dual this season — finished with four champions, two runners-up and 11 place winners overall.

No. 1 Frank Molinaro (149) and No. 2 Ed Ruth (174) joined Wright and Taylor as tournament champions. Earning 29.5 team points for the Lions, Taylor was named the tournament’s most outstanding wrestler, edging Ruth who won his second Scuffle title and also racked up 29.5 points.

“I was just looking forward to wrestling some more quality guys. I think the Top 4 seeds were guys that were (ranked in the Top 10), so that’s always nice to see those guys. You know you’re probably going to see them again at nationals,” Taylor told the Penn State Sports Network. “I only had 14 matches this year so now it starts picking up. We’ll start hitting it hard. Last year I had a lot of fun at the Scuffle. I thought that was probably one of the best performances I had. This year was just another fun tournament. I think we just wrestled really good all around.”

Taylor compiled three falls, a technical fall and a major decision en route to his championship.

Ruth bulldozed his way through the 174-pound bracket, racking up three pins, a major decision a technical fall before defeating teammate Matt Brown in the finale, 6-3. Sanderson said fans wanted to know more about Brown, a redshirt freshman who upset No. 7 Dorian Henderson and No. 11 Logan Storley on his way to face Ruth.

Sanderson is sure they won’t be asking again. “What a great weight class for us today,” Sanderson said. “Ed, he just did a great job all the way through the tournament. He got pins when we needed to get pins. He worked on his conditioning. He was doing the things that we’ve been talking about in practice out there. We could not be happier with Matt Brown. He beat a couple great kids on the way to the finals. The guy just goes, goes, goes.”

The same could be said for Molinaro, who in addition to winning his 100th match on the first day of the tournament, earned a crucial victory over Minnesota’s No. 11 Dylan Ness.

The Golden Gophers got back-to-back title wins from No. 1 Zach Sanders at 125 and Nick Dardanes (who is ranked No. 10 at 141 but dropped to 133 for this tournament) to take a one-point lead over Penn State heading into Molinaro’s match with Ness.

When the two wrestlers met in a dual meet at Rec Hall earlier this season, Molinaro jumped to a big lead, but held on late. Molinaro won 16-10 and Ness was able to prevent Penn State from earning crucial bonus points. Not this time.

Heading into the third period with a 3-0 lead and 2:07 advantage in riding time, Molinaro snagged Ness’ back and tossed him to the mat for a five-point move to open the final period. Ness would escape, but the riding time point gave Molinaro a 9-1 major decision and the Lions would never trail in the team score again.

“I think Frank did a great job. He knows that kid is pretty dangerous,” Sanderson said. “That kid has great hips. He’s a tough young guy. Frank knew he needed to stay patient. Patient but aggressive. The kid tried to get a little bit out of control and Frank was able to put him on his back. I thought he did a great job.”

Redshirt freshman Dylan Alton capped an impressive Scuffle debut with a second-place finish at 157 pounds. Alton squared off with No. 1 Kyle Dake of Cornell and battled the nation’s top-ranked 157-pounder tough. While Alton fended off numerous Dake shots through two periods, the Cornell junior did the same.

Dake earned a 1-0 lead with a mid-second period escape and added a counter takedown in the third to clinch a 3-0 win.

“He was close, he just wasn’t quite able to convert and that comes with experience too,” Sanderson said of Alton. “He’s really started to understand the training, understand the discipline that it requires and he’s been putting those things into action. We’d like to get that guy if we get another chance at him in March.”

Rounding out Penn State’s placewinners were freshman No. 13 Nico Megaludis who finished fourth at 125, sophomore James Vollrath who finished sixth at 157, freshman No. 11 Morgan McIntosh who finished sixth at 197, senior No. 8 Cameron Wade who finished fourth at 285 and freshman Jon Gingrich who finished eighth at 285.

“I think last year at this point, we all knew we were good. We were kind of like, ‘Yeah, we’re pretty good,’” Taylor said. “Now, we need to build on this. There’s no excuses. Our team is the best team in the country.”