Drake Ayala is cooking. 

Iowa’s returning NCAA finalist is 10-1 with seven bonus-point victories and ranked third nationally at 133 pounds. He’s riding a nine-match winning streak going into Friday night’s battle with second-ranked Lucas Byrd of Illinois. 

“He’s one tough son of a gun,” Iowa coach Tom Brands said of Ayala, whose only loss this season came to Stanford’s Tyler Knox.

Since that defeat, Ayala has won nine consecutive matches, including four to win the 133-pound title at the Soldier Salute.

Now he faces one of his biggest matches of the season.

“I think the best way to approach it is just how we always talk about the next one’s the biggest one,” Ayala said. “So this is the next one. This is the biggest match on tap.”

Brands praised Ayala’s consistency.

“That has to do with mat time,” Brands said. “The more that he's on the mat uninterrupted, the better. He's quite the competitor.”

“I think the thing about college wrestling — Division I college wrestling — (that) people don't understand is every match is tough,” Ayala said. “So I don't put this one on a pedestal, and I keep my routine the same, do the same things, and that's what works for me.”

Ayala’s next opponent is a two-time All-American who missed last season while recovering from a wrist injury. Byrd is 11-0 this season. This will be their first college meeting. 

Speaking Of Cooking

Ayala, who grew up in Fort Dodge, Iowa, lives with his brother Dru, a freshman 125-pounder.

Ayala said his family relationship is important.

“They’ve just been behind me all throughout the whole way — all the ups, all the downs,” said Ayala, who was the national runner-up at 125 pounds last season. “You know, some successful wrestlers don't have as many downs, but I've had those, and they've stuck with me through that. And they're just … they're awesome.”

Ayala said he works with his brother in the wrestling room, and there’s the occasional match in the living room.

“The dude doesn't know how to cook,” Ayala said. “So that's a learning curve for him right now. He eats out a lot right now, but we got to teach him how to cook at some point.”

Freshman Estrada At Home In Iowa

Brands calls freshman Miguel Estrada “a funny dude.”

“I could tell some stories,” Brands said on Tuesday.

He told one, and when asked about it later Estrada laughed and confirmed it.

“If you look at him and smile, he gets really paranoid,” Brands said, grinning. “So I look at him and smile a lot.”

It’s true, Estrada said.

“I just have some social anxiety and stuff,” he said when he met with the media. “I'm getting nervous right now. So, yeah, I tend to just smile a lot. But not when I wrestle, though, so it's OK.”

Estrada, a 157-pounder from Bakersfield, California, is expected to get his first chance to wrestle in a home meet when the Hawkeyes face Illinois on Friday night at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

Estrada has two dual wins this season — he defeated Princeton’s Cody Davoso by technical fall and won 10-4 over Wisconsin’s Luke Mechler in the Hawkeyes’ Big Ten opener. He’s been a key reserve while Iowa has been without returning NCAA finalist Jacori Teemer, who sustained a leg injury Nov. 23 against Iowa State. 

Coming to Iowa has been an education for Estrada, who was a three-time California state champion and was the 16U folkstyle national champion at 138 pounds in 2021.

The adjustment to traveling a long way from home, though, was easy.

“People are a lot nicer here than California,” Estrada said. “And it’s a lot cheaper here.”

Even the winter weather doesn’t bother him.

“I actually quite like the snow,” he said. “It's quite nice here. And just the rest of the environment is so much better than California.

“Definitely the buildings were a lot different. The people were different. Environment was just different in general. But I fit right in. I fit right in with these people, and I really like it here.”

“I think his home is Iowa City,” Brands said. “He came from a long way away, and his home is Iowa City.”

Now it’s a chance for the lineup spot at 157 to become home for Estrada, who is 12-2 overall with championships in the Luther Open and the Grand View Open. Estrada, with four wins by technical fall and three by pins this season, is one of four Hawkeyes who have been at 157 this season.

“The biggest (adjustment) would just be the way they wrestle here is just so much harder and just so much better,” Estrada said. “It's just a whole different aptitude, a different level. Everyone's tougher, everyone's meaner, everyone's in your face the entire time. And it's great.”

Estrada said he has been tested in the wrestling room.

“It’s just great to be able to just pick and learn and just realize that's the level that I have to reach in order to be the best,” he said. “And it's in the room every day. So it just gives me that much more confidence when I walk out of the room, because it doesn’t matter who's out there. I'm wrestling with the freaking #5, #4, #1 guys in the country.”

Estrada will face 22nd-ranked Jason Kraisser on Friday.

“I'm here to put on a show for people, and that's just how I like to wrestle,” he said. “And I think having more people in the crowd is just going to motivate me even more.”