Fresh off a memorable 2021-2022 season, Virginia Tech wrestling picked up two Atlantic Coast Conference season awards as NCAA silver medalist Mekhi Lewis was named the ACC Wrestler of the Year and head coach Tony Robie took home ACC Coach of the Year accolades.
The annual awards are determined by a vote of the league’s head coaches.
Lewis made history in 2019 when he became Tech’s first national champion while also adding the championship’s Most Outstanding Wrestler award and snagging ACC Wrestler of the Year honors as a freshman. In his new weight class this year, he made history once again by becoming the program’s first two-time finalist. Lewis is the fourth Virginia Tech wrestler to be voted ACC Wrestler of the Year and the first in program history to win the award twice.
Having recovered from the injury that forced him out of the 2021 national championship after reaching the quarterfinal round, Lewis, wrestled to his No.-2 seed by defeating No.-10 Clay Lautt of North Carolina and then pinning No.-3 Logan Massa of Michigan en route to his second finals appearance. He then dropped a competitive bout in a tiebreaker to defending champion No.- 1 Carter Starocci of Penn State.
Lewis’s NCAA silver medal finish capped a season in which he posted a 24-2 overall record.
Coach Tony Robie’s ACC Coach of the Year honors was his third award since he took the helm of the Hokies in 2017.
Under Robie’s leadership this season, Virginia Tech earned a conference-leading, eighth-place NCAA finish and produced three All-Americas: Lewis (second), Bryce Andonian (third), and Korbin Myers (sixth) – for the ninth consecutive season, a streak shared with Penn State, Cornell, and Iowa. At the national championships, the Hokies scored the fourth-most points in program history.
Tech claimed three individual gold medals at the ACC Championships – Lewis, Myers, and Nathan Traxler – while placing second in team scoring. Tech’s eight qualifiers for the NCAA Championships was the second most in the conference.
