Inside HOKIE SPORTS | Vol. 11 No. 6 | June 2019

14 Inside Hokie Sports 1. Mekhi Lewis wins the national championship Lewis, a redshirt freshman from Bound Brook, New Jersey, won the national championship in the 165-pound weight class at the NCAA Wrestling Championships held in Pittsburgh in late March, becoming Virginia Tech’s first wrestling national champion. He dominated two- time defending national champion Vincenzo Joseph of Penn State, winning 7-1. The victory capped an overpowering three-day span for Lewis, who beat the No. 1 seed (Iowa’s Alex Marinelli), the No. 4 seed (Wisconsin’s Evan Wick) and Joseph, the No. 2 seed. He wasn’t taken down a single time, and he became just the fourth ACC wrestler ever to win the championship event’s Most Outstanding Wrestler award. 2. Hokies’ win over Liberty leads to Sweet 16 The Virginia Tech men’s basketball team made history with its win over Liberty in a second-round NCAA Tournament game played in San Jose, California on March 24. The Hokies secured a school-record 26th victory and advanced to the Sweet 16 for the first time since the NCAA implemented its expanded tournament format in 1985. Kerry Blackshear Jr. led the way with 19 points and nine rebounds, and Ty Outlaw added 10 points and 11 rebounds in a victory that marked Buzz Williams’ 100th as the coach at Tech. 3. Men’s track and field team wins two ACC team titles The Virginia Tech men’s track and field team enjoyed a banner campaign, claiming a share of the ACC’s indoor team title and outright winning the league crown at the ACC Outdoor Championships. Deakin Volz and Jacory Patterson led the way both times, as both won gold medals in the pole vault and 400-meter dash, respectively, at each meet. At the ACC outdoor meet, freshman Miles Green (400 hurdles) and sophomores Bashir Mosavel-Lo (800) and Fitsum Seyoum (3,000 steeplechase) won gold medals as well. The Tech men’s team now has won nine ACC team titles since the school joined the league in 2004-05. 4. Hollandsworth finishes fifth at NCAA Championships Amanda Hollandsworth enjoyed a fantastic spring for the Virginia Tech women’s golf team, and her season and career ended with a fifth- place finish at the NCAA Championships played at The Blessings Golf Club in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The Floyd, Virginia product proved her fifth-place finish at the Norman, Oklahoma Regional was not a fluke, as she shot rounds of 75, 72 and 72 to end at even par for the tournament. Hollandsworth closed her career by finishing in the top 15 in five consecutive tournaments—excluding her victory in a U.S. Women’s Open sectional qualifier tournament in Springfield, Virginia that qualified her for the U.S. Women’s Open. 5. Tech women’s soccer stuns rival UVA The Hokies refused to let the weather or the then-No. 6 Cavaliers stop them in a key ACC match in Blacksburg on Sept. 27, as they overcame a torrential downpour, a lightning delay and overall horrible conditions to register a 1-0 victory over their rivals. Tech’s Jordan Hemmen took a pass from Emily Gray and headed the ball into the goal in the 14th minute to account for the match’s lone goal. Mandy McGlynn had six stops in goal for the Hokies, who shut out Virginia for the first time since 2008 and beat a top-10 team for the first time since 2013. 6. Tech softball knocks of Georgia to spark great season Getting great pitching from Carrie Eberle and four hits and three RBI from Darby Trull, the Virginia Tech softball team shocked then-No. 8 Georgia 7-6 in eight innings in a Bulldog Classic game played March 1 in Athens, Georgia. Trull singled in Madi Banks with the winning run, making a winner of Eberle, who allowed just three earned runs in seven innings and struck out six. Tech was 13-2 entering the game, though most of those wins had come against non-Power 5 schools. The victory sparked the Hokies to an incredible 47-win season—one in which they also won the ACC’s Coastal Division crown and made an NCAA regional appearance for the first time since 2015. 7. Commonwealth Cup stays in Blacksburg Trailing by a touchdown with less than three minutes remaining in regulation, the Virginia Tech football team rallied and secured a 34- 31 overtime victory over rival Virginia at Lane Stadium on Nov. 23, extending the Hokies’ winning streak over the Cavaliers to 15 straight. Tech tied the game at 31 on a crazy play in which Hezekiah Grimsley recovered a Steven Peoples fumble in the end zone with 1:51 remaining. The Hokies took a 34-31 lead on their first possession of overtime when Brian Johnson hit a 42-yard field goal. On the Cavaliers’ possession, quarterback Bryce Perkins fumbled an exchange with tailback Jordan Ellis, and Tech’s Emmanuel Belmar recovered to end the game. Here are the top-10 moments of the 2018-19 academic year, as compiled by the magazine staff, with help from several in the strategic communications office by Jimmy Robertson 2 1