PISCATAWAY -- Rutgers lost the bout but won the Battle.

A string of four victories in five weight classes between 149 and 184 pounds lifted the Rutgers wrestling team to a 19-16 victory over rival Princeton in the much-hyped outdoor match billed as the Battle at the Birthplace.

It didn't disappoint the second-largest crowd in NCAA wrestling history -- and largest at Rutgers -- on a 62-degree Saturday afternoon at High Point Solutions Stadium.

"I envisioned us wrestling a little bit better," Rutgers coach Scott Goodale said. "But that's what I envisioned as far as the crowd. These people are dying for this, they love people that win. They like excitement. I knew they wanted something like this."

Both teams won five of 10 bouts but Rutgers scored bonus points in three decisions.

"It's a relentless attitude of scoring points," Goodale said.

After the teams alternated wins through the first four bouts, the match turned when first-year starter John Van Brill scored a 13-3 major decision at 157. Van Brill finished the match sitting on top of Mike D'Aneglo until the whistle.

Van Brill hopped up and immediately flapped his arms at the 16,178 fans, as if trying to fill the shoes of former emotional crowd favorite Anthony Perrotti.

With Van Brill at 157, Richie Lewis bumped up to 165 and made it back-to-back major decisions (17-6) and back-to-back spectacles. Lewis flexed his biceps just as the two-time All-American Perrotti used to, and the fans responded as Rutgers took a 14-6 lead.

"I didn't just have big shoes to fill winning the match," Lewis said. "I had a pretty big flex to fill."

New Jersey high school and youth wrestling programs supported the match, which was contested in the north end zone and started nine hours before kickoff of the much-anticipated Rutgers-Penn State primetime football game.

Princeton came in wanting to "stomp" Rutgers but instead lost for the 21st straight time to its in-state rival. Rutgers claimed the B1G-Ivy trophy, re-established last year for a series that dates to 1927.

"I don't care too much about the winning and losing -- obviously it's always nice to win -- but I am pretty disappointed with the way my guys wrestled today," Princeton coach Chris Ayers said. "Rutgers took us to it. If I did a shot count, they probably out-shot us, or out-attempted us, 3- or 4-to-1. So you can't win if you wrestle tight."

The match was decided before the heavyweight bout thanks in large part to Nick Gravina's 23-4 technical fall at 184 pounds. That's a career-high point total for Gravina, whose win was the last for Rutgers because it lost at 197 and heavyweight.

"I really didn't even know what the score was," Gravina said. "I just kept pushing pace and felt him break."

Princeton captured the featured bout between two New Jersey high school wrestling stars at 141 as Princeton's Matthew Kolodzik handed Rutgers' Anthony Ashnault the first home loss of his three-year college career.

It was the two-time All-American Ashnault's second loss in three career matches against Kolodzik, who wrestled unattached last season out of Blair Academy and is hoping to become an All-American as a freshman who deferred college admission.

Ashnault, who has just 13 career losses after a 170-0 high school career at South Plainfield, led 3-1 after two periods. Kolodzik scored a one-point escape at 1:02 and a decisive two-point fall with eight seconds remaining.

"We're sitting on a lead, sitting on a lead, waiting, waiting, and bad things happen when you do that," Goodale said. "You could feel the place deflate a little bit."

Rutgers rebounded with a 6-4 decision from Ken Theobold to tie the match score at 6-6. Theobold redshirted as a junior last season and has returned strong to the position where he went 7-2 in the Big Ten in 2014-15.

Princeton's other big victory was by Jon Schleifer, an East Brunswick native who celebrated his trip north with a 3-1 sudden victory takedown of Phil Bakuckas at 174.

Goodale kept his lineup a tight secret at several spots and it paid off immediately.

Tyson Dippery, who was an NCAA qualifier at 149 pounds last season but made a drastic weight cut, earned a 7-2 decision at 133, where he got the start ahead of Scott DelVecchio.

Princeton's Ty Agaisse, who grew up around Rutgers wrestling in its youth programs, started the match with a 2-0 victory against three-year starter Sean McCabe at 125.

National powers Iowa and Oklahoma State became the first teams to use the outdoor football stadium blueprint last season. The match drew a remarkable 42,287 fans to Iowa City.

LISTEN: Episode 6 of NJ.com's Rutgers Football podcast

Rebuilding Rutgers: From The Ashes takes you inside the new football regime. This episode is a 10-year anniversary retrospect of Rutgers' greatest win.

Ryan Dunleavy may be reached at rdunleavy@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @rydunleavy. Find NJ.com Rutgers Football on Facebook.