ST. LOUIS — After he won his semifinal match with Central Michigan’s Drew Hildebrandt via 11-0 decision, Iowa’s Spencer Lee appeared to be a little gimpy exiting the mat.

In a videoconference with reporters shortly at his semifinal match Friday night, Lee brushed off concerns about his post-bout limp.

“Fantastic, how’s that?” Lee said of his health Friday.

As it turned out, Lee wasn’t as healthy as he claimed to be.

Most of the wrestlers that took the mat for the finals did so with vigor. When it was their turn to compete, many wrestlers sprinted out of the Enterprise Center’s tunnels and past the view of the spotlight before they hurdled two rickety metal stairs that connected the floor to the elevated championship mat.

Minnesota’s Gable Steveson took the acrobatics one step further, doing a cartwheel and a backflip after he defeated Michigan’s Mason Parris in the 285-pound national finals.

Lee, on the other hand, slowly trotted out of the tunnel when the time came for him to wrestle Arizona State’s Brandon Courtney for a national title. With the spotlight on him, Lee gradually worked his way across the sprawling red carpet that ran from the tunnel to the mat.

Once the Murrysville, Pennsylvania, native arrived at the elevated mat’s steps, he did no jumping, leaping, or flipping. Instead, Lee simply walked up both steps.

When Lee made it up onto the mat and the match began, he did what he’s done all season. The senior Hawkeye defeated Courtney is shutout fashion, 7-0, to claim his third national title.

Lee then donned a hat that read “NCAA National Champions 2021” in black and gold lettering and headed over to the south end of the Enterprise Center for an interview with ESPN.

At that time, Lee revealed that he had wrestled the entirety of the 2021 NCAA Championships with a torn ACL.

“Eight days ago, I tore my ACL in my other knee” Lee told ESPN. “I’m wrestling with no ACLs … I could barely wrestle, I could barely shoot, can’t sprawl.”

Lee proceeded to celebrate his individual title and the Hawkeyes’ team title with his teammates.

“You can never overstate [Lee’s] importance,” Hawkeye head coach Tom Brands said Saturday night. “He’s certainly the spark plug and the igniter, but it’s way, way more than that.”

Even with an injured knee, Lee still outscored his 2021 NCAA Championship opponents, 58-9, in total. Lee’s heroics helped the Hawkeyes score 129.0 team points — 15.5 points clear of the nearest challenger, Penn State.

“It’s not really my motto to make excuses or anything, but I tore my ACL in my other knee [eight days ago],” Lee said at a Saturday videoconference with reporters. “Didn’t wrestle at all. Had probably three three-hour workouts every day to help this. Tough it out. Doesn’t matter. No excuses. I don’t really want to talk about it that much more. I just want people to know, we go through a lot as wrestlers.”

Lee noted that he wrestled with an injured knee at the 2018-19 NCAA Championships. Lee also wrestled now-teammate Austin DeSanto in the Pennsylvania state high school wrestling tournament with a torn ACL.

“It was hard,” Lee said. “I didn’t even know if I could wrestle [Saturday], honestly. Talked about forfeiting a few times. But, if I’m gonna lose, I’m gonna lose my way, and that’s it. It doesn’t matter. I’m not one to make an excuse. If I lost, I probably would’ve said nothing because that’s just how I am. You gotta win no matter what. No matter what’s wrong with you, no matter what’s going on. That’s what defines a champion. You go through whatever. I’m kind of upset that I told the world. Excuses, man. I don’t make excuses. A win’s a win.”

“Doctors were kinda shocked that I could even do anything as soon as it happened, you know? Like, doing pistol squats and stuff with my knee, and doctors were like, ‘You shouldn’t be able to do that,'” Lee said. “It’s whatever, man. We figured it out, so here we are.”