Two University of Wisconsin students took fate in their hands and spun the wheel this week.

Senior Nick LaMantia and junior Kelly Clinton-Cirocco appeared on different episodes of the “Wheel of Fortune” television game show as part of the program’s College Week edition. The shows were filmed March 8 following tryouts over winter break and aired Tuesday and Thursday.

LaMantia won around $28,000 in cash and prizes on Thursday night’s show, including a trip to Europe and Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

He said signing up for the game show was a spontaneous act, not a lifelong dream.

“‘Wheel of Fortune’ was on, and I was doing all right, so I just went on the website and it took a minute to sign up,” LaMantia said.

LaMantia had completely forgotten about the application until he received an e-mail two weeks later inviting him to audition for the show.

The auditions happened during winter break in Chicago, and many of the 70 other students trying out “had their game faces on,” LaMantia said.

“Everyone was all intense,” he added.

LaMantia said he took the game show lightly and didn’t expect much out of it.

About a month after the audition, LaMantia received a letter in the mail inviting him to appear on the show at some point in the coming year. To LaMantia’s surprise, he was asked to compete at a filming at Chicago’s Navy Pier two weeks later, March 8.

UW senior Travis Kowitz, a friend of LaMantia, said he was confident LaMantia would do well.

“I was surprised at first to hear he was going to be on the show because he hadn’t mentioned it to us,” Kowitz said. “But I knew he was going to do well.”

LaMantia said he hung out at the studio all day before the filming and became friends with the students he was to compete with.

“We couldn’t even be competitive with each other because we had been sitting there for so long talking,” LaMantia said.

Despite his success on the show, LaMantia said he was upset he missed the last puzzle, which would have given him an extra $30,000.

“Some of my friends in the stands knew the answer,” LaMantia said. “I was a little disappointed.”

Kowitz, who was in the audience rooting for his friend, said when the last question was asked, he and other friends thought LaMantia knew the answer.

“We were just kind of looking at each other, thinking that he had it in the bag,” Kowitz said.

LaMantia said the answer to the puzzle he missed was “party favor,” a phrase he doesn’t use very often. He added he looks forward to his trip to Europe this coming September and plans to bring a friend along.

“Someone’s going to get hooked up,” LaMantia said. “Someone’s going to owe me big.”

Clinton-Cirocco, like LaMantia, had never dreamed of being on the “Wheel of Fortune.” In fact, her mother signed her up for the show.

“I tried out once this summer and didn’t get it,” Kelly Clinton-Cirocco said. “My mom then signed me up again without telling me.”

Clinton-Cirocco’s mother, Anne, said she remembered her daughter liking the show when she was a little girl.

“We’re a military family, and we have lived all over the world,” Anne Clinton-Cirocco said. “In Japan it was one of the only American shows she could see.”

Anne Clinton-Cirocco said when their family moved to California, they were in the audience of a “Wheel of Fortune” filming and she remembers a wish her daughter shared.

“She must have been in kindergarten or first grade,” Anne Clinton-Cirocco said. “She said, ‘One day I want to be on the show.'”

Sure enough, second time was the charm for Kelly Clinton-Cirocco, who was also invited to the College Week tryouts over winter break in Chicago.

She said her second tryout was more fun because there were only college students auditioning.

“The environment was totally different,” Clinton-Cirocco said. “Everyone was excited and jumping up and down.” She said she had a great time, even though she didn’t win any trips to Europe.

“I only spun [the wheel] twice the whole time,” Clinton-Cirocco said. “But it was just about the experience for me.”

She added she got something better than big cash prizes.

“I got my hug from Pat Sajak and that is all I really wanted.”

UW freshman Tara Wangard, a friend of Clinton-Cirocco, said a few weeks before her appearance on the show they began watching “Wheel of Fortune” daily.

“We watched it so she could get some practice and get pumped up,” Wangard said.

Clinton-Cirocco, who appeared on Tuesday’s episode, said she and her friends went to Lucky’s Bar to watch the show and that even one of her professors stopped by.

“It was really fun,” Clinton-Cirocco said. “My friends were all laughing at me because I didn’t play that much.”

Clinton-Cirocco said that she, LaMantia and some of the other contestants got to be pretty good friends throughout the course of filming the show.

“We still talk,” Clinton-Cirocco said. “We even made a group on Facebook.”