In a battle of top-five ranked wrestling teams, No. 5 Ohio State fell, 34-9, against No. 2 Penn State in front of a sold-out crowd in University Park Pa., Sunday afternoon.

“It was a complete mental, physical letdown,” said OSU wrestling coach Tom Ryan. “Overall, it wasn’t a lot of positive to draw from it.” OSU was only able to win two matches behind the effort of brothers redshirt freshman Logan Stieber and freshman Hunter Stieber.

The two have been the last two weeks’ Big Ten Wrestler and Co-Wrestler of the Week.

At 133-pounds, Logan Stieber pinned Frank Martellotti and, shortly after, at 141-pounds, Hunter Stieber secured an 8-5 decision against Bryan Pearsall.

From 149-pounds on, though, Penn State piled 31 straight points over the course of seven straight wins in a blowout victory for the defending national champions.

While Ryan said Penn State provided some match-up problems, he was still upset that his team didn’t wrestle up to level of competition that they did against Iowa, which the Buckeyes won, 20-9.

“This isn’t about winning and losing. It’s about effort,” Ryan said.

OSU was without 149-pound freshman Cam Tessari and 184-pound redshirt junior C.J. Magrum. Both sat due to lingering injuries.

Between OSU and Penn State, 17 wrestlers, as of the day of the dual, were ranked in the top 25 in their respective weight class.

Penn State, who last beat Iowa 22-12, improved to 9-1 and 5-1 in the Big Ten.

The Buckeyes, on the other hand, slipped to 9-3 on the year and 3-3 in the conference.

The loss comes nine days after OSU secured what some call its biggest dual win in history against the Iowa Hawkeyes.

This week, however, the Buckeyes were less fortunate on the road, like they have been much of this season with all three losses coming away from home.

OSU will look to rebound at home against Michigan at 6 p.m. Friday night.

“I do think we we’ll respond,” Ryan said. “We saw what we’re capable of against Iowa.”