Bringing Carver-Hawkeye Arena to its feet in the first match win of the night, Iowa men’s wrestling 133-pounder No. 9 Drake Ayala pulled off a third-period 11-7 comeback win over Iowa State’s No. 5 Evan Frost to improve to 3-1 on the season on Saturday evening.
Ayala’s win over Frost may seem like a decisively easy victory for; however, that was far from the case as Ayala did not prevail until the final minute of the third period.
Starting the first period strong, Ayala took advantage of early home crowd momentum to record a takedown at the 1:56 mark. Shortly following Ayala’s takedown, though, Frost maneuvered out of a sticky situation to score a shifty escape on Ayala, moving the score to 3-1 in favor of Iowa.
Fueled by a poor first period performance, Frost came out with a chip on his shoulder to start the second period, outscoring Ayala, 4-1. The second period early escape and takedown by Frost brought the overall score to 5-4 — leaving fans on the edge of their seats for the final third period of play. After losing the 125-pound bout to the Cyclones and going down 3-0 on overall team score, the home Iowa fans were restless for a Hawkeye win.
With only two minutes to execute, Ayala came out firing on all cylinders, recording an early escape and takedown in the first 45 seconds of the third period.
Frost followed up on Ayala’s takedown with an escape of his own, bringing the score to 6-8 in favor of Iowa. And with a two-point lead entering the final minute of action, Ayala continued to perform in front of a lively Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
Ayala recorded his third takedown of the match in the third period, bringing fans to their feet for the second time of the match with all chanting the famous ‘Let’s go Hawks’ slogan as time expired.
Head Coach Tom Brands felt like Ayala recorded a true gritty win.
“Ayala was in a tough scrap; it was a tough scrap, and he persevered,” he said. “I liked how he wasn’t forcing things that he sometimes likes to force, and it came natural. And it’s progress. I love it, love him. He’s a leader. And he was gutsy in that match.”
Ayala’s comeback victory over No. 5 Frost marked the first upset of the night for the Hawkeyes — a massive ranked win for Ayala too — and gave Iowa its first points to the team total.
During official media day in late October, Ayala highlighted much of his improvement made in the offseason.
“Now it’s just gotten to the point where I feel my best weight is 133,” Ayala said. “I’m excited. I’m not just going in to throw my hat in the room. I’m going to dominate.”
Without Ayala’s win, No. 2 Iowa would have found itself in a deep 15-3 hole following intermission, adding enormous pressure for the back half of the lineup to perform and compensate.
The crucial comeback victory gave Ayala some much-needed confidence in Carver as the 133-pounder suffered a gut-wrenching loss earlier in the season to Stanford’s Tyler Knox on Nov. 9.
The Hawkeyes ultimately defeated the Cyclones, 21-12, with Ayala’s win being instrumental to the Iowa victory. Ayala’s mindset coming into the season was more than prevalent tonight.
“My mindset is I’ve got to take one step higher on that podium, right? I got second last year, so I’m excited to go out there dominating,” he said. “A big thing for me is scoring points. I’ve got to score points, and when I do that, I wrestle like Drake Ayala. Good things happen.”