It’s all about the points, Iowa’s Drake Ayala said.

The returning NCAA finalist, who moved up to 133 pounds for this season, opened the season last Saturday at Oregon State with a 26-10 technical fall over Damion Elliot. Ayala gave up an early takedown, then took control of the match.

“My mentality was just to keep scoring,” Ayala said Wednesday. “Even though I get taken down once here or there, that's fine, but if I keep scoring, that's when good things happen.”

It was a good start to the season for Ayala, an NCAA runner-up at 125 last season who moved up a weight class. And it was an example of what he says is “wrestling like Drake Ayala.”

“Scoring a lot of points,” he said. “I mean, just pouring it on our opponent, and just having fun doing that. I've done that ever since I was a little kid, so there's no need to stop now that I get to college and we have better competition.”

Iowa coach Tom Brands said he enjoys Ayala’s relentlessness on the mat.

“He just kept going,” Brands said. “Right now, in my mind, I see the Energizer Bunny, something like that. You know, keep it going. Just keep wrestling that way.”

Brands said he saw that aggressiveness as Ayala rallied from the early takedown.

“Something did go against him, he got taken down, and he got back in the match and got the tech fall,” Brands said. “Good for him. Let's keep it going. Keep that pace.”

Ayala went 27-5 last season, getting through to the national championship match before losing 7-2 to Arizona State’s Richard Figueroa.

“I think what you saw at Oregon State, it doesn't matter how good the guy is, it doesn't matter how bad the guy is,” Brands said. “All that matters is Drake Ayala. Goes out and wrestles like he's capable of doing. And when that happens, he is explosive, he is dynamic, he's a throttler, he's a hammer. And those are all good synonyms for dominant wrestlers.”

The aggressiveness, Ayala said, comes from having worked with three-time national champion and Olympic silver medalist Spencer Lee in practice.

“I think any time you wrestle Spencer Lee into practice, you elevate your level,” Ayala said. “So I think it's good for me to wrestle him just to feel that. I mean, he was an Olympic silver medalist this year, so get to feel that level, you continue to improve.”

The move to 133 hasn’t affected Ayala.

“It’s still wrestling,” he said. “I can't even really tell the difference in the weight class. I can tell in my workouts and my practices, I'm having a lot more fun and I'm focusing on the right things. So that's a good thing for me.”

Ayala, ranked third at 133, gets #20 Tyler Knox (2-0) in Saturday’s dual against Stanford at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

“There’s nothing to take lightly,” Ayala said. “They're a talented team, and we got to go in there. That's the next day down on our calendar. That's the next big thing. So we’ve got to be ready to go.”

Bonding Time

The trip to Oregon State for the 30-7 dual win featured some “goofy flights,” Ayala said, but it was a good bonding experience for the team.

Ayala told about the early wake-up call the team had on Sunday morning to head back to Iowa City.

“We had a time change (for Daylight Savings Time),” Ayala said. “So we had a time change, and then we left for the airport from the hotel at, like, 2 a.m. They knocked on our doors at 2 a.m., we left at 2:30 and then it was just all of us hanging out in the airport at 4 a.m. with each other. It was a little goofy. It was fun though.”

Tunnel Walk

Saturday’s dual will be the first at Carver-Hawkeye Arena since the construction of the new tunnel between the arena and the Goschke Family Wrestling Training Center.

The Hawkeyes will come out of the tunnel located at the south end of the arena, instead of the usual tunnel entrance at the northwest corner.

“We had media day in there, so I got to see it and stuff,” Ayala said. “And there's lights in there. It's cool. It's different. It's on the other side of the arena. So that’ll be different too.”