Two Virginia Tech wrestlers, Sam Latona and Hunter Bolen landed the top seeds of their respective weight classes for Sunday’s ACC wrestling championships.
Latona wrestling in the 125-lb. weight class; Bolen takes to the mat in the 184-lb. Weight class. The Hokies finished the regular season undefeated. Both Latona and Bolen finished the year at 8-0. Bolen was the only Hokie to go 5-0 in ACC competition.
Bolen is the consensus No. 1 184-pound wrestler in the country and the defending ACC 184-pound champion. In his first season starting at 125 pounds, Latona defeated reigning ACC Freshman of the Year Jakob Camacho and is ranked No. 5 nationally by InterMat.
Earning the second seed at their respective classes were Bryce Andonian, Mekhi Lewis and Korbin Myers.
In his sixth year of college wrestling, Myers finished 6-0 on the season and beat three ranked ACC opponents by major decision. Andonian and Lewis each only have one loss on the year with both coming to the respective top seeds of the class.
As top-two seeds, the five Hokies will each have first-round byes Sunday.
Redshirt freshman Connor Brady and redshirt junior John Borst each earned the no.-3 seed at 157 pounds and heavyweight, respectively. Borst earned third place at the 2020 ACC Championships, automatically qualifying him for the 2020 NCAA Championships. In his first season as a starter, Brady went 3-2 in ACC play and 5-3 in dual matches.
Rounding out the remaining seeds for the Hokies are Dakota Howard (no. 4 at 174 pounds), Sam Hillegas (no. 5 at 141 pounds) and Stan Smeltzer (no. 5 at 197 pounds)..
Hosted by NC State, the 2021 ACC Championships are scheduled to start Sunday at 11 a.m. with the championship matches scheduled for 7 p.m.
–VT Athletics