UNIVERSITY PARK — The group of wrestlers who were honored prior to Penn State’s dual meet Friday night in Senior Night activities never experienced a dual meet loss as a Nittany Lion.

Not one.

Let that sink in for a second.

After Penn State honored Brian Borden, Aaron Nagao and Levi Haines during those Senior Night festivities, the Nittany Lions (15-0, 8-0 B1G) tied a bow on the night and the regular season by blanking Princeton (4-11) 50-0.

Penn State ends the season with its sixth consecutive undefeated season and extends its dual meet winning streak to 86.

The Nittany Lions tied Iowa (2009-10) for the most shutout wins in a season by a Big Ten team with eight, more than half of the Nittany Lions’ 15 wins. Oklahoma State holds the NCAA record of 10 during the 1982-83 season.

Penn State produced easily the most statistically dominating season in the history of the program and arguably in NCAA history.

Consider:

Penn State won 139 of 150 individual bouts.

The Nittany Lions earned bonus points in 108 of those wins.

Penn State outscored its opponents by an aggregate of 630-39.

The Nittany Lions amassed a combined total of 486 takedowns while allowing their foes only 42.

Against the Tigers, No. 1 Mitchell Mesenbrink (165), No. 1 Haines (174) and No. 1 Josh Barr (197) all pinned their opponents. No. 1 Luke Lilledahl earned a win by disqualification.

No. 4 P.J. Duke (157), No. 1 Rocco Welsh (184) and No. 6 Cole Mirasola (285) turned in technical falls. No. 2 Marcus Blaze (133) and No. 1 Shayne Van Ness (149) earned major decisions. No. 12 Braeden Davis (141) won by decision.

On a night devoid of drama, the crowd saved its loudest cheers for the lone senior starter — Haines, who fittingly won the Ridge Riley Award representative of the outstanding wrestler in a home dual.

Paired with Cody Tavoso, Haines converted two takedowns to lead 6-1 after one. He scored a reversal and then a takedown in the second before running a bow and arrow and then going chest to chest to flatten him in 4:05. He hunted the fall with the look of man determined to close his Rec Hall career with a pin.

“I always want to pin everybody,” Haines said with a smile, sidestepping a question of whether he was especially keen to do that in his last Rec Hall appearance.

He was a bit more loquacious reflecting on his time in a blue and white singlet.

“It’s gone by really quick. You know, Jeff Byers (the voice of Penn State Wrestling) asked me the same thing, and I just kind of told him, ‘I think when you’re always just trying to pursue kind of mastering yourself or mastering your craft, time just kind of goes quick because you’re just focused on the task at hand, and time just seems to slip by really quick when you’re doing that,” he said.

“And there’s so many memories that I can’t tell you a favorite one. One that just kind of sticks out in my memory is last year when we had a bunch of guys wrestle back to get third place (at NCAAs). I think was pretty special. You know, it’s not the easiest thing to do. Just really proud of our guys and how they showed up for the team and just weren’t, you know, thinking for themselves, thinking poor me. I didn’t. I came up a little short, and they just went out, got the next best thing and scored a lot of team points on the backside. And that’s what helps bring team trophies back home.”

In a bizarre start to the match, Penn State took a 6-0 lead after 125-pounder Lilledahl was awarded a win by disqualification over Marc-Anthony McGowan. The Tiger was warned for stalling five times, the last coming with six seconds left in the match. McGowan consistently backed up and never once shot a takedown. It took a few minutes at the end for the referees to sort out the DQ as they had apparently lost track of how many times they had warned McGowan for stalling.

“I don’t remember seeing anything quite like that before,” Penn State coach Cael Sanderson said. “You see kids get stalled out but not in that kind of a situation.”

At 133, Blaze had to earn a takedown in each period over another defensive-minded Tiger, Ethan Rivera. An escape and a riding time point added up to an 11-3 major decision.

Davis had his hands full with Matthew Martino at 141. Two first-period takedowns gave the Nittany Lion a 6-1 lead. In the second, though, Martino scored a takedown of his own to close to within 8-4 after two. Davis converted a counter takedown in the third to earn an 11-8 decision.

Shayne Van Ness ran Penn State’s lead to 17-0 with 15-6 major decision over Eligh Rivera. Van Ness continued his recent trend of giving up an early takedown, only to score one more to take a 7-4 lead after one. He turned up the pressure the rest of the way, scoring two takedowns in each of the final two periods, added a stall point and another for riding time to settle the final.

Duke closed out the first half of the dual with another of his patented takedown clinics. Using a variety of attacks and counters, he piled up eight takedowns, four in the first period alone, to earn a 24-8 technical fall over Gavin Hawk in 6:08.

With a 22-0 lead at the break, the only thing in doubt was how lopsided the final score would be. With a consecutive pins at 165 and 174, the Nittany Lions locked up the win.

First, Mesenbrink opened a 6-1 lead after one and then barred an arm, ran a half-Nelson and stacked up Ty Whalen for a fall in 3:31. Haines followed with another pin.

Welsh put on a takedown clinic at 184, scoring four in the first period on Xavier Giles and then ending the match at the 4:11 mark with three more in the second period.

Barr scored two quick takedowns on Conor McCloskey, the second coming on an assassin, or reverse headlock, that resulted in a pin in 1:29.

Finally, at 285, Mirasola continued his upward trajectory as he was an offensive juggernaut against Sebastian Garibaldi. He scored five first-period takedowns to open a 15-4 first period lead. Two takedowns in the second ended the match at the 3:46 mark by a 21-6 final.

Sanderson pointed to Mirasola’s growing confidence as the source of his recent, rapid improvement.

“Just his confidence factor, right? When you’re on this team with guys like Levi Haines and the rest of the squad, you want to wrestle at the same level. And I think that’s what Cole wants to do,” he said. “Obviously, he wants to score points and he’s a team guy. Wants to contribute. And obviously he has in a lot of ways, in many ways.”

Nagao’s inclusion in the Senior Night festivities signalled to many that his injury marred career is over. Jeff Byers said on the Penn State Sports network that was indeed the case.

Penn State will have two weeks to rest, recuperate and fine tune before the Big Ten Wrestling Championships on March 7-8 at the Bryce Jordan Center.

No. 1 Penn State 50

Princeton 0

(Friday at University Park)

125: No. 1 Luke Lilledahl, PSU, won by disqualification over No. 12 Marc-Anthony McGowan, 6:54.

133: No. 2 Marcus Blaze, PSU, maj. dec. No. 32 Ethan Rivera, 11-3.

141: No. 12 Braeden Davis, PSU, dec. Matthew Martino, 11-8.

149: No. 1 Shayne Van Ness, PSU, maj. dec. No. 14 Eligh Rivera, 15-6.

157: No. 4 P.J. Duke, PSU, won by tech. fall over Gavin Hawk, 24-8 (6:08).

165: No. 1 Mitchell Mesenbrink, PSU, pinned No. 19 Ty Whalen, 3:31.

174: No. 1 Levi Haines, PSU, pinned Cody Tavoso, 4:05.

184: No. 1 Rocco Welsh, PSU, won by tech. fall over Xavier Giles, 21-6 (4:11).

197: No. 1 Josh Barr, PSU, pinned Conor McCloskey, 1:29.

285: No. 6 Cole Mirasola, PSU, won by tech. fall over Sebastian Garibaldi, 21-6 (3:46)

Ridge Riley Award winner: Levi Haines.

Attendance: 6,356.

Takedowns: Princeton 2; Penn State 39.

Records: Princeton 4-11; Penn State 15-0, 8-0 B1G.

Next competition: Penn State at Big Ten Championships, March 7-8 at Bryce Jordan Center.