πππ π¬πππ π¬π'π«π ππππ£ π¬πππ©ππ£π ππ€π§.πππππ πππππππ.ππππ ππππ ππππππππππππππ¦ π Everybodyπ Little Caesar's Arena, Detroit, MIπ March 17-19πΊ @espn @ESPNUπ @HokiesWrestlingLet's. Go. #Hokies #ALLINALLTHETIMEπ¦ pic.twitter.com/5D6RKuKYr5β Virginia Tech Wrestling (@HokiesWrestling) March 14, 2022
π ππππ ππ‘ππ¦π©π’π¨π§π¬π‘π’π© π | Seeds & Brackets Lewis becomes third-ever Hokie to earn No. 2 seed. Myers, Traxler garner top-10 seed ahead of Detroit.Check out full seeds and full bracketsπ° Β» https://t.co/HY0MbpBZgH#Hokies #ALLINALLTHETIMEπ¦β Virginia Tech Wrestling (@HokiesWrestling) March 10, 2022
Competition starts Thursday at noon and runs through Saturday night. Early rounds can be streamed online and the Finals will be on ESPN. Follow the Hokies Wrestling twitter to see mat assignments throughout the tournament.
The Hokies have a great chance at another top 10 team finish. Mekhi Lewis will be in the hunt for another title and Korbin Myers will be looking to break through in to the top 3. Hokies have six guys with All American potential. Wins in the consolation bracket will be key if the team wants to threaten making top 5. I'll be in Detroit cheering the team on in person so thank you to anyone that posts results. Special thanks to APrimusHokie for handling it all season.
Comments
Have a good trip to the Motor City for the NCAA championship. I agree with you in thanking APrimusHokie for keeping us updated this season. That 174 group with Mekhi at #2 is stacked with elite competition.
Overall, wrestlebacks will be important for us & hoping for a Top 10 finish.
Here is a link to ESPN's broadcast details.
I think we finish around 6th-9th but who knows. All depends on what our guys do. Hopefully Brady and gerardi gets a upset or 2 consolation wins. Hope BA gets 5 wins like 2 in championship bracket and 3 in consolations and picks up 2-3 bonus point wins. Hope latona can get 4 wins. Hope bolen gets 4 as well. Hope traxler gets 5 wins. He got a tough draw getting that uva hwt again plus a possible match with Mason Parris in the round of 16 is really tough. Hope Myers and Lewis get to Semis or Finals and finish between 1st and 3rd
Latona on deck mat 4
Way to go Sam... win over 9 seed!!!
Yep he wrestled really good that match. That reversal at the end of the 2nd period was big
Big, especially when his opponent had 1:40+ riding time built up in 2nd period
Myers on deck mat 5
App state wrestler upseted Pat McKee of Minnesota. Its Latona and Smith for a spot in the quarters later
Myers up 5-0 so far
Myers with a 12-0 major decision
Thru 2 matches. Hokies has 3 team points
Korbin with the major! almost 5 minutes riding time
Colin on mat 4 now
Colin drops match against #5 seed
Bryce Andonian on deck mat 8 --- let's get some bonus pts
Andonian advances 9-5
Brady drops 3-2
Mekhi on deck mat 7
Major by Mekhi 15-7
Mekhi Lewis with the major 15-7
With mekhi major. Hokies has 6 team points
What would be an acceptable point total by the end of round 1?
Well with 2 matches left for Hokies wrestlers. I say 8 or 9 would be nice
To be in reasonable contention for a higher team finish, what would be a good point total
Good question. I say getting around 65 team points would be good for around 6th/7th. Usually to finish top 4 you have to have 80+ points
Bolen will be on mat 7
Alright bolen. Its your last dance. Let's make a run
Takedown FTW 6-3
Way to go Hunter... tough match!
BIG TAKEDOWN AT THE END BOLENπ
That Bolen match was like watching the Clemson game. See the lead slipping away, think the other guy is going to ride it out and win on the riding time, then BOOM: escape and a take down. Phew
I was selfishly wanting bolen to stick him so hokies would have gone up to 9 team points π
@HokiesWrestling said Bolen's opponent was from Iowa and I was a little more excited for a match against the oranges. Am I holding the grudge too long?
No. Pardon my French here but FUCK the brand brothers. Then now alwaysπ
Also after the match bolen went to shake Tom's hand and he turn and walked away. A classless loser he isπ
What a loser
The Brands brothers are a bunch of jerks. They don't have many friends in college wrestling.
Traxler on deck mat 6
Traxler looks off
Nice takedown
That was a beautiful sling single to double
Way to Go Trax! SV takedown
After session 1. Hokies has 6 in the round of 16 and 2 consolation bracket. Hokies in a tie for 9th in team points with 8
Next session is at 7pm. Let's get some march madness games in while we wait π
First round was about as good as it was going to get for the Hokies minus some more bonus points wins. Latona got a big win to get us started and McKee got upset so Sam faces the 25 seed tonight. Myers looked good. Andonian got kicked in the face right before a rest and looked stunned the rest of the match. Lewis looked strong. Bolen had a gritty win, let Assad to his legs too easily but was able to avoid giving up points. Impressed Traxler found a way to get the win despite being exhausted. Gerardi and Brady both have winnable consolation matches. Pretty disappointed that Brady was so passive in the third.
Yeah brady didn't try to do much until the last 30 seconds
He has to start shooting earlier in the round, at least force the stall warning with some time left so the other guy can't run away for 30 seconds.
Other non-Tech related notes. UNC had a pretty bad round with O'Connor losing (he has a knee injury, maybe torn ACL) and Kane losing. NC State had an okay round. Jack lost his rematch with UNCs Clarke. The Trent Hidlay pin was a trash call. Trumble got upset.
Ethan Smith, 174 from Ohio State, got upset so that means Lewis will face a lower seed in the Quarterfinals if he wins tonight. There was almost a fight after the UNI vs Oklahoma match at 174. I wasn't watching that match so not sure what happened.
Thanks for the notes from Detroit. O'Connor busted up his knee at the ACC finals so not too surprised he lost.
Something was off about Bryce Andonian as he grabbed at his face/head a number of times trying to shake the cobwebs out.
Watching the 8 different mats on ESPN cameras here makes for a lot of clicking back and forth on the computer but a cool way to watch for not being there.
Took a kick to the face in the 1st period
Refs totally missed it. Should have given him a few seconds like they do for an eye poke.
Latona will be on deck mat 4. Myers in hole mat 6 starting at 7
So watching the princeton wrestler in the match before latona's. In coming recruit Caleb Henson beat Keller 12-0 in the southeast open finals
Latona up 3-0 going to the 3rd
Beautiful ankle pick latona
Latona with a 6-2 win. On to the quarters
Looking for a possible myers takedown. He's up 3-0 rn
Myers gets a takedown. Now 5-1
IU wrestler is injured. Looks bad
Korbin wins by injury default
Andonian on deck mat 5
Latona looks good and Korbin looks sharp. Too bad for the IU wrestler as it looked like he was in alot pain. How many points are awarded for an injury default?
2 bonus team points. So korbin just got 3 points
Hokies up to 5th after the injury default
Andonian on deck mat 5 against 6th seed
I remember his opponent and him wrestled at a open 2 years ago. Andonian got up 8-0 then he got injured and the other guy used that to his advantage and won 15-13
Andonian off to a quick 6-0 lead
App state challenging illegal move. Andonian up 7-3
BIG TIME THROW BA
Hellπ 16-10 andonian
Man, I love watching the way BA uses leverage. unorthodox for most but it works for him
Yeah that headlock throw was crazy
Didn't like how milner was being dirty at the end
Lewis on deck mat 4
Lewis up 3-2
Another one going to the quarterfinals. Mekhi did just enough.
Hunter Bolen coming up on mat 7
Lewis onto quarters as well
Hunter match on mat 7 not coming up on my espn???
Parris on a whole another level
We got 1 round of consolation coming up. Gerardi and brady looking to fight back for 3rd
As of now hokies tied for 6th in team points with 14
Love the updates. Thanks for feeding!
Gerardi tournament ends after a 7-1 loss
Brady up. Mat 5
And Brady picks up his first career ncaa tournament win beating MSU 3-2. That win puts us back in a tie for 6th with 14.5 points
And with that being the final hokie match of the day. I'll see yall tomorrow for conso's and quarters π
Pretty good second session for the Hokies. Bolen and Traxler both had really tough matchups, downside of not getting better seeds. Glad to see Brady break through and get a win. He was more offensive and it paid off even though he struggled finishing shots. Andonian looked pretty good while he was actually wrestling but he shut it down way too early. He was one stall away from a forfeit, gotta wrestle all 7 minutes. Tomorrow's first session is going to be really tough. Hokies need some herculean efforts if they want more than one wrestler in to the semifinals.
Non-Tech notes. That session was WILD. UNCs Kizhan Clarke stunned #2 Eierman in SV, the same Clarke that laid an egg at the ACCs two weeks ago.
#1 Carr of ISU at 157 was stunned by the #17 seed Willits from Oregon State. The match went to rideouts. Carr got ridden out and Willits got the escape with just a few seconds left. Courtney of UVA pulled another upset, this time over the 9 seed. Sebastian Rivera beat Chad Red on a push out stall call in Sudden Victory (lots of boos over that one). UVAs Aiello looked like he had the winning takedown over Penn State's Dean, instead it got called for Dean (even more boos). #5 Bonaccorsi got upset by the #21 seed in sudden victory.
Oh and UNCs Gavin Kane lost his match in consolations to the #30 seed. I will never understand how Bolen lost to this guy twice because Kane was not close to winning either match today.
Today's Matchups:
125: Latona vs #1 Suriano (Michigan)
133: Myers vs #5 Desanto (Iowa)
149: Andonian vs #3 Gomez (Wisconsin)
157: Brady vs Casto (Citadel) - Consolation
174: Lewis vs #10 Lautt (UNC)
184: Bolen vs Kentt (Missouri) - Consolation
285: Traxler vs Reid (LHU) - Consolation
Hokies are tied for 7th with 14.5 points with Nebraska.
Brady could make a cheeky run at AA todayππ
Latona on mat 5. Myers on 6. Andonian on 3 and Lewis on 4 when the quarterfinals come around at 11
Latona up first mat 5
That was too fast!
Latona got double legged into a pin
Welp. Myers on deck mat 6
Myers vs DeSanto is a rematch of last years 3rd place match. DeSanto won 10-6
Desanto just whipped Myers. Myers couldn't not do anything with Desanto on top.
Myers gets majored 9-0. This looking like a typical friday morning hokies wrestling team
Andonian on deck mat 3
This gonna be a close call
It stood
This is a hell of a match
Every BA match you're on the edge of your seat. His style is so much fun and has to be so weird for the majority of opponents. You think you have him (because you do have him) and then somehow he flips and has you on your back.
Time was out by 5 Seconds π
BA WITH THE FALL
BYRCE FUCKING ANDONIAN LADIES AND GENTLEMEN
You never know if BA is gonna be on his back or pinning the other guy pretty much on every move lmao
ALL AMERICAN BYRCE ANDONIAN
Are there any replays of the match up yet, or just the live stream?
Hokies wrestling Twitter has a video of the pin
ESPN app will have it on demand if you have espn with cable/tv subscription. But it's the entire broadcast on that mat for the session.
Other good news for Andonian is he doesn't face Tariq Wilson from NC State. Wilson lost to Lovett from Nebraska
Just gotta stay away from the long and lanky guys.
Brady on deck mat 8
I tell y'all what. If Brady could finish his shots. He would be a top 12 wrestler
Lewis up mat 4
4-2 for khi. 2X All-American
MEKHI LEWIS. 2X ALL AMERICAN
After the quarterfinals for all hokies wrestlers. Hokies are in a tie for 4th with 30.5 points
What's a realistic finish for the team?
I still say around 6th to about 9th
Work got in the way so missed today's matches so Thank You for posting updates. I've always said BA has got an unusual entertaining style to him and taking down a physically stronger opponent in Gomez is why you can't count him out except against Tariq Wilson. But now that he is out of the way the podium is looking way better for BA. Congrats on the All American!!!
And to Mekhi 2nd time All American !!
Bolen will be on mat 2
Yeah. Bolen is wrestling like a guy who doesn't wanna wrestle anymore
Well bolen thanks for your 4 season's of wrestling. He finishes as a 1x ACC Champion and 2x All American
Traxler up next mat 7
Oh lord. That dude he facing is a big dude
Well when he finishes like that it helps
Trax advances with a 6-5 win
Traxler faces Lewis Fernandes of Cornell. Traxler beat him 5-3 back in December
Fernandes is also a former hokies commit
Myers faces the 26 seed Ramos for a AA spot and Latona faces the 6 seed Barnett for AA
Tough road for Latona this tournament.
Well we knew when he is on. He's on. Also he got the 25 seed in the 2nd round instead of the 8 seed so it hasn't been tough per say
Traxler loses 8-4. His career has come to a end. A Pac 10 Champion at 197 and a ACC Champion at hwt and was a 5Γ ncaa qualifier
Decent round for the Hokies overall. Tough to see a couple seniors get eliminated. Cannot be more excited about Andonian breaking through to the semifinals. Hopefully Tech can put together 4 wins tonight.
That would be huge
Latona loses 7-3. He misses All American status this year
Myers wins 12-2. HE'S A 2X ALL AMERICAN
Who does Myers face later tonight? Would love to see him finish 3rd.
Idk. Can't find anything for it
Andonian loses 5-4
Ugh, tough loss in what was a winnable match. I really wish BA had cut him lose and tried to just win that in OT.
Yeah. But tbh I thought he had the defensive pin. He had control of the head and had him flat on his back for a solid 2 seconds
Yeah I thought the same thing that BA was going to get the defensive pin... surprised they didn't review it
Lewis gets the pin and is back in the finals!
That PA guy gets it!
MEKHI LEWIS. HES A BADDDDDDD DUDE
That was amazing. Lewis was in beast mode. So proud.
Lewis trying to single-handedly keep us in contention for a podium spot. Final's gonna be rough. Wish someone on the other side of the bracket had been able to pull the upset.
Good news is that Myers and Andonian have a good chance to fight for 3rd tomorrow
Gotta love the emotion that Mekhi showed...
Hokies with a huge jump in team points after the Mekhi fall. Up to 48.5 and in a tie for 5th
And nc state finishes with no finalist. For a program that says their the best team in the ACC. They mostly always finish behind the Hokies in team points at the NCAA tournament ππ
FINAL DAY OF THE COLLEGE WRESTLING SEASON. Myers will be up first on mat 3 and Andonian on deck mat 3
Myers loses 10-3. He will wrestle for 5th/6th later
ANDONIAN WITH A WORKMAN 9-4 DECISION. He'll wrestle for 3rd/4th later
I'm not sure anyone has ever described an Andonian match as workman like before.
Cause they usually aintπ he wrestle a really controlled match against milner the 2nd time I thought
Byrce Andonian has a rematch against Austin Gomez for 3rd. Who's ready for another crazy matchπ
Gomez had a vice grip on Sasso's foot hanging on for dear life. Its gonna be crazy and plenty of bear hugs & throwdowns.
Myers takes on Byrd for 5th
Trent hidlay lostπ couldn't happen to a better person π
Especially after he ran to the table to avoid a last second takedown.
Yep that should have stayed as a takedown and I'm glad they didn't reverse the next takedown call. Great effort by the other wrestler and I liked it when he wrestled all the way to whistle to put H on his butt.
Andonian with the win for 3rd! Go Hokies!
BRYCE ANDONIAN 3RD PLACE WINNER!!!
Are you crying? I'm not crying it's my allergies. Bryce Andonian one helluva match with Gomez. I could watch these 2 guys go at it all year long. Unbelievable scrambling. Proud of no quit in Bryce. 3rd Place!!! Way to Go!
That was some amazing wrestling. Nice job BA. I have to tell myself to breath when he is in the ring.
So is top 5 still possible if Khi wins tonight?
Also BA had a great tournament, he's always dangerous and seemed to maintain good position throughout which is hard with his throw heavy style
5th is possible. Need Mekhi to win and need ridge lovett to lose
Tough to say with Northwestern and Cornell also having finalists. Not sure if Mizzou can pass Tech or not.
NC State is done so Tech has beaten them in the team race as is tradition.
I was fixing lunch during his match so. Thank you Korbin so much for being a hokie. He finishes his hokie career a 2X ACC Champion and a 2X ALL AMERICAN and 100 career wins. Congrats beansπ€ππ
Is Mekhi the best athlete ever at Tech?
That is a very good question. He definitely top 3 imo
So I saw a comment on the twitterverse congratulating M L and mentioning something about him almost walking away from wrestling at one point and I don't remember hearing that before and was wondering if that was actually the case over the past year or so.
So from my brother. Zach Zavatsky goes to the gym in the university mall and my brother goes to that gym and they talk sometimes. ZZ told him he doesn't think Mekhi is gonna go all 4 years. I think he comes back 1 more year. Unless he wins natty tonight
When does Lewis wrestle tonight?
My guess. Around 8:30ish
Lewis is next in about five minutes.
He had that
TAKE DOWN
Tied up going into 3
Damn
I hate the new riding time bullshit rule
I was about to say that I think the OT rule in wrestling is pretty terrible. I dont think some miniscule amount of riding time should win you a national championship.
Tough way to lose an NC. Also, it seemed like the announcers expected Lewis to be bottom first as he scored the first points. Did they just give the choice to the higher seed?
No the first points scored were the initial escape by the PS guy, still a crappy way to loose it, but that was a great run and hoping we get another one next season
The top 8 teams have been locked. Hokies finish 8th
I forgot how to post pictures again. Can I get some help plzπ₯
Upload to Imgur. Copy link to photo. And then click on the left most icon above the comment box. Paste link there.
I had some weird issue (user error I assume) where imgur wasn't giving me the link to the picture but to a page to view them, the only difference is a .jpg on the end of the link so make sure your link you copy has .jpg, or you could manually type it.
edit: fixed auto correct
Thank yaπ
No problem. Just make sure the copied link ends in .jpg. Sometimes that means right clicking the photo once it's uploaded and clicking open image in new tab and coping the address there.
Ah okay I knew I was missing something π
Will Lewis be back next year? He's listed as a RS junior but he's also 22
I have not heard any talk that he won't be back. He has two more years to compete for VT and right now the expectation is he will use both.
Tough way to finish a pretty good tournament for the Hokies. Lewis and Andonian were both exceptionally close to winning the matches they lost. I was extremely impressed with Andonian's performance. He is finding the sweet spot between controlled and chaotic making him extremely dangerous. Beating Gomez a second time to take 3rd is a huge accomplishment. Lewis wrestled a great tournament and just came out on the wrong end of a coin flip match. Myers dropped some tough ones but glad to see him finish out his career as an All American.
Looking forward to next year there will probably be plenty of shakeups. Latona will bump up although I don't know if it'll be to 133 or 141. That leaves 125 open for Flynn or Ventresca. I'm pretty confident after hearing Bryce talk that this is the last time we will see him at 149. Not sure who will bump in to that spot, maybe Hillegas bumps up like he did during the season. That would make Brady compete for the 165 spot. It sounds like there is a really strong chance that Bolen is done, but never say never. I can see Howard cutting to 184 if Bolen doesn't come back. That will leave Andy Smith and TJ Stewart to compete for 197. Catka will take over at HWT.
If Andonian is at 57 next season. I'm pretty sure Henson will slot in at 49
My way to early next season projected lineup.
125:Cooper Flynn
133:Sam Latona
141:Sam Hillegas
149:Caleb Henson
157:Bryce Andonian
165:Clayton Ulrey
174:Mekhi Lewis
184:Dakota Howard
197:TJ Stewart
285:Hunter Catka
I'm always nervous when wrestlers move up.
It's a bit of a crap shoot on how guys handle it. Some make big strides and some struggle a bit. I don't think there's much of a choice for Latona or Andonian though. We will just have to hope they get even better when they don't have to cut so much weight.
I wasn't sure if Henson would cut down to 149 or not. You're probably right. I'm interested to see the competition between Stewart and Smith at 197. Smith has shown potential and it'll be his third year in the program so he will be primed to make a big improvement year over year. Could give Robie the opportunity to redshirt Stewart, similar to how he handled Mekhi.
Latona is moving up? I would have thought he'd be in good position for an AA run; now he's in the class with RBY.
Andonian should be in contention for AA, maybe even a Natty
Mekhi should also be in play for a Natty.
Latona is way too big to stay at 125. He is at least 5'10". He was going to move up this season if Myers didn't come back. I think the weight cut was a big part of why he struggled so much early in the season.
If Latona's height can help him eliminate RBY at the NCAAs next year, I'll donate his new weight class to the Hokie Club, with all of it earmarked to the wrestling team.
Latona got used to the weight cut at the end of the season. Early in the season it effected him pretty bad imo. Also I think he could benefit from the 8 more pounds of muscle
Well. Hillegas to the portal
That's rough. I thought he was going to be the starter next year. Any rumor as to why he's hitting the portal? I haven't heard anything.
Well speciation on TSL is that Sam is moving all the way up to 141 with Flynn and Ventresca are taking 125/133 spots
So is that more indicative of him being the best option at 141 or that Flynn and Ventresca are showing enough potential that the best lineup is to have them both in the lineup? Is there any talk of bringing in other transfers for the weaker spots or are they hoping that redshirts and recruits are going to step in. I would think 49, 65, 84, 97 would be target areas unless Church goes 49 and Stewart 97 (love JYD, but his lack of control and technique gets exploited against the really good ones) are ready to go without a redshirt season.
We are bringing a transfer for 65. Give Ulrey a redshirt year. Howard probably gonna drop to 184. I think that's his best weight. Henson probably gonna slot into 49 cause I think Andonian goes 57
Looking at the lower weights Latona gets to wrestle at whatever weight is best for him, whether it's 133 or 141. He's definitely big enough to do either. Ventresca and Flynn both had great seasons this year unattached so it wouldn't hurt to get them both in the lineup. Henson is already on campus so there's a good chance he pushes for a spot. Wouldn't be surprised to see Stewart win that 197 spot over Andy Smith either.
Makes sense at 65, and I had Henson and Church mixed up for some reason. Sounds like if everything falls right we should still be in the mix for the ACC.
More 141 fallout in college wrestling. Returning AA Real Woods announced he is transferring to Iowa. Wyatt Henson, 141 at Iowa that just redshirted (blue chip recruit) announced today he is transferring. Hokies might have some scholarship money to throw at him since Hillegas is in the portal.
Beating the drum, because it's been awesome seeing what SERTC and the VT Wrestling Program have done over the past decade.
SERTC is a big part of Bryce Andonian's growth.
I'll drop this thread in here too in case anyone wants to check out some technical analysis of the first Andonian vs Gomez match. Really top notch stuff.
This guys has awesome breakdowns throughout the season. I believe he's done both Andonian and Mekhi before.
He definitely likes breaking down Andonian. Has done both folkstyle and freestyle for BA.
Yeah I just did a search on his Twitter and BA is there a lot. I guess I just missed it.
Latona at 133, Henson at 149 unless they find a transfer with only one year of eligibility, Andonian at 157, Bolen is coming back for one last run, Smith and Howard at 197 allowing Stewart to redshirt. All from Robie on TSL podcast.
I like sam at 133 since I think the weight cut won't be an issue and he still has good length. Big news on the Bolen front, I'm really surprised as he really seemed to be unfocused or not right for the later part of the season.