NC State wrestling faced its toughest opponent of the season to this point and responded with a 27-6 blowout of No. 12 Pittsburgh, thanks to a pair of top-10 upsets, including one by a true freshman in his dual debut.

Outside of a 42-0 win at Gardner-Webb that kicked off the season, it actually represented the Wolfpack’s biggest margin of victory of the year.

Some thoughts and observations from the bout are below:

College wrestling world, meet Isaac Trumble. The true freshman 197-pounder from Springfield, Neb., had gone 3-0 with three falls in extra matches against App State (two) and Virginia.

But those had nothing on what he did Friday night.

Trumble, a consensus top-60 recruit, got the starting nod against a top-five opponent in No. 5 Nino Bonaccorsi and made the most of it with a 6-1 victory. This was no fluke win, either.

Bonaccorsi is one of the most offensive wrestlers in the league, and perhaps the country, at his weight and he could not score on Trumble. Literally. The only point the All-American Panther scored was via a Trumble penalty for locked hands.

Bonaccorsi spent the entire first period in on shots, but couldn’t finish against Trumble’s superior defense. Then Trumble rode Bonaccorsi for all two minutes of the second period — no easy task against a veteran redshirt junior — and even got a four-point turn near the end of the frame.

Trumble capped the scoring with an escape in the third and continued to fend off Bonaccorsi’s offense. The tests don’t get any more difficult than that for Trumble’s dual debut, and it may be impossible to keep him out of the lineup after such a well-rounded impressive victory.

Expect Trumble to win not only the ACC Wrestler of the Week laurel, but also some national honors for that performance. This longtime observer of the program can’t remember a more head-turning dual debut out of a true freshman.

Head coach Pat Popolizio told The Wolfpacker before the season that Trumble, with his 6-4 frame and high ceiling, was a “wild card” — it turns out he really may have been an ace in the hole.

From one of the least-known members of the team to most well-known, fifth-year senior 165-pounder Thomas Bullard has been a lineup mainstay for the past few years.

However, the 2020 second-team All-American didn’t get off to the start many were expecting from the veteran this year. He had dropped each of his first two dual appearances, falling 4-0 against App State and 4-3 at Virginia.

Bullard had his toughest test of the year in top-10 foe Jake Wentzel, the defending ACC champion at 165, and rose to the occasion. He looked more like himself and pulled out a 4-3 victory, overcoming two stall calls (which resulted in a point for Wentzel) and utilizing a takedown in the second period with about two seconds remaining for the difference.

This is the Thomas Bullard NC State needs to accomplish its goals of ACC and NCAA trophies this season, especially in one of the league’s deepest weight classes. Five of the six ACC starters were ranked this week among the nation’s top 15 by FloWrestling, and Wentzel was listed the second-highest.

This squarely puts Bullard back in the conversation after tumbling in the national rankings after a tough start to his season.

We said we expected the top-15 showdown between fifth-year senior 141-pounder Tariq Wilson and Pitt’s Cole Matthews to be a tight one in our preview, and it couldn’t have been any closer.

Though Wilson led 4-1 after two periods, Matthews stormed back with four points in the final frame, including a headlock with about five seconds left in regulation, to send it to overtime. After a scoreless sudden victory period, Wilson tallied a reversal in his tie-breaker period on bottom to take the match.

Prior to the last few moments of regulation, Wilson looked like he could be rounding back into his All-American form. Though he’s been getting out of the gate quickly in most of his matches this season, he looked better at the end of the tie-breaker periods — after nine minutes of wrestling — than he did at the end of last week’s regulation match at Virginia.

It was also a positive that Wilson rode his opponent out after securing his takedown in the first with roughly 36 seconds left — if he did not, that would’ve provided the difference on the scoreboard in regulation and resulted in a loss (provided everything else went the same). Finally, he was able to quickly reverse his opponent both times he started on bottom.

• Redshirt sophomore 184-pounder Trent Hidlay made his dual debut earlier than originally expected, when he took the mat last week against Virginia and posted a 4-0 win over Michael Battista, who has worked his way into the bottom few slots of some national rankings.

But there wasn’t much time for Hidlay to adjust back into competition after an emergency appendectomy last month since his next three foes are all ranked among the nation’s top 20. Hidlay looked to be in great shape, pouring it on against No. 16 Gregg Harvey, allowing only four escape points (two of which were cuts) in an 11-4 victory.

Thanks to a takedown with less than 10 seconds remaining in the second period, Hidlay led 5-1 going into the third and final period, but he went hunting for bonus points and nearly earned the major decision with two takedowns in the final frame, plus a stall call that granted him a penalty point and his riding time point.

Hidlay had one of the best offseasons in college wrestling and he looks like he's back at full strength already.

• Redshirt sophomore 125-pounder Jakob Camacho has clearly jumped levels from his ACC championship campaign last year, and it shows in his national ranking — he’s listed as high as second in the land by FloWrestling and WrestleStat.

After his 13-5 major decision that kicked off the dual Friday night, he has now outscored his four dual opponents 61-24. Unofficially, 18 of those 24 points allowed have been escapes (several of which have been “cuts,” where Camacho allows him opponent up to get back to work in neutral).

• Fifth-year senior 157-pounder Hayden Hidlay continues to dominate his competition as well. A 19-2 technical fall victory marked his fourth bonus-point win in five bouts this year. He has two pins in less than a minute, a major decision, last night's technical fall and a 6-3 win over a top-20 foe.

• Though we usually stick to the dual in this space, there continues to be one wrestler making notable noise in the “extra” matches afterwards — redshirt freshman 149-pounder Hunter Lewis picked up his fifth pin in as many appearances this year. He stuck Pitt’s Jake Cherry in 5:53.

To put in perspective how impressive that is — only six of the 35 wrestlers on the roster have more than five career pins.

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