In his days at Penn State, Hritsko’s love for college wrestling exploded. Hobbies seemed to always come back around to college wrestling and the Nittany Lions, in particular. The offseason was almost nonexistent for the future Mr. Fanco.
When the season wrapped up and multiple Nittany Lions would be crowned National champions and All-Americans, Hritsko would have his eyes on the forums, message boards, rankings and recruit sites, not to mention everyday conversation about it all.
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One name he spent a lot of time watching, studying and celebrating was Nickal.
“Being at Penn State I always enjoyed watching these newer guys come in,” Hritsko said. “I liked seeing the freshmen come in and then see just how good they were. ‘Is this recruit going to be any good? He may be good but how good?’ In his freshman year, when he just started winning, winning, winning, winning and the margins he was winning by in many cases was very impressive to me, it really stood out.”
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In only his freshman year, Nickal made the National finals, where he would lose to Myles Martin of Ohio State, and while Hritsko would have to “settle” for runner-up for one of his new favorite wrestlers, he knew big things were on the horizon, but not to the level he had expected.
“As far as the history of Penn Staters is concerned, he’s my top three Penn Stater of all-time,” Hritsko said enthusiastically. “That’s not just recency bias; that’s based on how good he was in college.”
If pressed for a Top 10 list of NCAA moments Hritsko says Nickal would likely make at least three appearances. He captivated the entire sport, outside of maybe Iowa City, for his entire career, but no match will ever have a place in Hritsko’s heart quite like Nickal’s run in the 2018 NCAA National Championship.
“To set the stage, the team race was between Penn State and Ohio State,” Hritsko said. “Those were the two big teams back in 2018. It was my first National Championship that I got to go to, so I was super stoked about it and it was either going to be Penn State or Ohio State that was going to win the team title.”
With the season on the line, revenge on the line, individual gold on the line and team gold on the line, it was up to Nickal to try and take down the man who halted his freshman run.
“Myles Martin had previously beat Bo two years before at the National Championships,” Hritsko laid out. “Well, Bo came out and in the first period Myles tossed Bo to his back and Bo just straight up rolled through it and stuck Myles Martin in the first period and the arena went wild. The team race was over at that point. He came through in the clutch and he came off the mat and his famous quote is, ‘that’s what we do at Penn State.’”
It was an ending that took two full seasons to unfold in its entirety. A million things needed to come together for the storybook ending, and everything fell into place.