Mekhi Lewis, 2021
Virginia Tech wrestling has a storied history, particularly in recent years. Since 2008, Virginia Tech has accumulated an overall record of 219-52, including eight ACC tournament and regular season championships and two individual national champions. The first of these individual titles took place in 2019 when then-freshman Mekhi Lewis stunned the wrestling world after he won the 165-pound weight class as an 8-seed. Although Lewis won as an individual, his win sent shockwaves throughout Hokie Nation, as his National Championship was the school’s first in any sport. It was no secret that the Hokies had a winning wrestling program, but Lewis’ win helped remind the wrestling community of this fact.
After pulling off one of collegiate wrestling's greatest upsets, Lewis took an Olympic redshirt during the 2019-20 season. Fresh off qualifying for the Olympic Team trials, he returned to the Hokies prior to the start of the 2020-21 campaign. During that season, Lewis went unbeaten leading up to the regular season dual against Pittsburgh in February 2021.
As the #1 wrestler in the 165-pound weight class, Lewis faced off against Pitt’s Jake Wentzel but ultimately was forced to take an injury forfeit in the third period. Later, Lewis entered the ACC Championships in Raleigh, North Carolina as the 2-seed in the 165-pound weight class. Unfortunately, he was forced to medically withdraw from the competition, seemingly after re-aggravating the injury he suffered in the Pittsburgh dual, but earned an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament in St. Louis a few weeks later.
Despite wrestling hurt and in visible pain, Lewis still managed to win his first two NCAA matches before again medically withdrawing from the tournament. Although Lewis’ Hokies squad was not in the running for a team title, his chances for claiming another individual crown were superb leading up to his injury.
Coming into the Pittsburgh dual, Lewis maintained a 28-match win streak dating back to the 2018-19 season. He was the consensus #1 wrestler in one of the most competitive weight classes in college wrestling at the time and looked to keep up his momentum through the end of the regular season to win another ACC championship en route to the NCAAs, where he surely would have been the 1-seed there, as well. In virtually every way possible, Lewis was on the top of his game going into the Pittsburgh dual and was the clear favorite to win another NCAA title, making the medical forfeits that toppled his trajectory all the more difficult to accept.
Lewis went on to claim another ACC Championship in 2022, his second overall, and later wrestled his way to the NCAA finals as the 2-seed in the 174-pound weight class— becoming Virginia Tech’s first two-time finalist— but came up short against Penn State’s Carter Starocci. Lewis rounded out his time in a Virginia Tech singlet in the 2023 and 2024 seasons with consecutive ACC titles and 4th place NCAA tournament finishes, becoming the first Hokies wrestler to finish in the top 4 in every one of his NCAA appearances, according to Virginia Tech Athletics. Mekhi Lewis is without a doubt one of the greatest Virginia Tech athletes of all time, and deserves the respect awarded to him. He will always have “2019 NCAA Champion” next to his name, and certainly could have added a similar title for 2021 to his long list of achievements, were it not for his injury.