Dubuque Wahlert's Josh Ramirez is going for his fourth wrestling state title this week. His other three came in Louisiana.

DUBUQUE, Ia. — The only noise inside the Wahlert High School wrestling room are the squeaks of shoes and the heavy breathing of Kolton Bartow. The senior is in the middle of a drill, and right now, he can’t escape from bottom. The guy on top is just too good.

After two minutes, a coach calls time. Bartow shoots upward, puts his hands on his hips and walks away.

“I hate this sport,” he says. “I hate it so much.”

Bartow doesn’t actually hate it, but the frustration is real. He has won over 100 matches in his career, placed third at state a year ago and is currently ranked No. 1 at 170 pounds in Class 2A. He isn't used to getting his tail kicked.

But this season, a new practice partner and teammate arrived, and has spent all year beating on Bartow in practice.

On this February afternoon, Josh Ramirez wears a long-sleeve shirt underneath a sweater, and spends the next 30 minutes riding Bartow. Ramirez's technique is immaculate, his hands, feet and hips all moving in sync with one another to keep Bartow on the mat.

Nearby, head coach Joel Allen smiles as he watches.

“He’s done that all year,” Allen says. “I know what’s about to happen (this week). I’m excited for the state to see what’s about to happen, too.”

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All eyes will be on Fort Dodge’s Brody Teske and Underwood’s Alex Thomsen this week as they attempt to become the 26th and 27th members of the elusive club reserved for four-time state wrestling champions. They have been the story of this high school season, each ending the other’s chase for career perfection after wrestling twice this year.

But Ramirez is also aiming for his fourth state wrestling title this week. It would just be his first in Iowa.

“It would mean a lot to me,” Ramirez says. “I’ve put a lot of time, effort and work into this.”

The senior has been 2A’s top-ranked 160-pounder all year, despite wrestling just 11 matches. Transfer rules forced him to sit for 90 days after coming to Iowa from his native Louisiana, where, at Archbishop Rummel, he won state each of the last three seasons.

Ramirez came to Wahlert with the hopes of boosting his already-exceptional wrestling profile. He’s ranked 17th nationally at 160 pounds by Intermat and has committed to wrestle at Ohio State. His record stands at 9-2 this season because his first match didn’t come until Jan. 25.

That night, Ramirez received an Iowa high school wrestling baptism as hundreds packed the Wahlert gym to root for him and his teammates. He’s eager to experience the state-tournament atmosphere inside Wells Fargo Arena this week — and to give the crowd a show.

“I plan on walking off that mat a state champ this week,” Ramirez says. “I’m going to get my hand raised.”

Switching to wrestling

Wrestling was not Ramirez’s first sport. He grew up in New Orleans, where football is king, but at age 4, he started jiu jitsu, a martial art focused on chokes and holds. He played a little soccer, too, but was drawn to the combative nature jiu jitsu offered.

In seventh grade, a friend recommended he try wrestling. By then, thoughts swirled in Ramirez’s head about his future. There isn’t a college scholarship market for jiu jitsu, so he gave wrestling a whirl. He loved it.

It was not a seamless transition. A decade of jiu jitsu created muscle memory, which created some confusion at first. For example, Ramirez says, you can be comfortable on your back and lock your hands in jiu jitsu. Not in wrestling.

“It didn’t take me long to figure it out,” he continues. “I’m not going to say it was easy, but I had a good feel for it. But I ended up just quitting jiu jitsu because I was getting mixed up by going back and forth. I just wanted to focus all on wrestling.

“I knew that this sport was going to take me forward in life.”

Two years later, as a freshman at Rummel, Ramirez went 36-7 and won a 2015 state championship at 160 pounds in Louisiana’s large class, outscoring his four opponents 45-9. He did so on a partially torn MCL. The next year, he went 50-0 and recorded two pins and two technical falls en route to a second title at 170.

Small colleges sent letters, but Ramirez’s recruitment was mostly quiet. Louisiana is not a wrestling-rich state — only 1,660 kids participated in wrestling during the 2016-17 school year, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. Only 15 states had fewer participants. (To compare: Iowa had 6,586 wrestlers in the same year.)

Ramirez figured he needed to do more in order to get noticed. His coach at Rummel, Jonathan Orillion, told him about the Junior Freestyle National Championships up in Fargo, North Dakota, routinely one of the toughest tournaments in the country. College coaches flock to the Fargo Dome each year to recruit the best high school wrestlers.

“I remember sitting in his office and he’s explaining it to me, and I told him, 'I want to win that,'” Ramirez says. “He told me it was like the pinnacle of high school wrestling. He told me that’s where I want to be, and that’s what’ll help me get to where I want to go.”

The July after his sophomore year, Ramirez and six other Louisiana wrestlers made the 1,450-mile trek north. He took sixth at 170 after making a run to the semifinals, wherein he beat Jack Jessen, a Northwestern recruit who is currently the second-best 182-pounder in the country.

Ramirez returned home to phone calls from Illinois, Nebraska and Ohio State. He took a visit to Champaign the following November. The night after winning his third state title and his second undefeated season, he picked the Fighting Illini.

His future was set — or so he thought.

One of his primary recruiters at Illinois, Mark Perry, left the program in May 2017 to become the head coach of the Hawkeye Wrestling Club, and Ramirez de-committed soon after. It was also around then that Ramirez began thinking of leaving Louisiana to find more competition elsewhere for his senior wrestling season.

He decided on Iowa primarily because of the local connection he had with some members of the Loras College wrestling program in Dubuque. Loras wrestlers Guy Patron Jr., Keegan Gilligan, Richard Hunter and Nathan Pitts are all from Louisiana and the surrounding area, and Loras is less than 10 minutes from Wahlert.

Last July, Ramirez took eighth at the same national tournament, becoming Louisiana’s first two-time Junior freestyle All-American. The following August, he and his dad packed up and came to Iowa to chase a dream.

“Down there, it wasn’t benefiting me by any means to stay an extra year,” Ramirez says. “I wanted to go where I was going to be comfortable. I have people here that I know. I was going to have support.

“I started looking at schools and actually came up for a camp in June, and I was placed with coach Allen,” he added. "That’s where I met Kolton and the rest of the team. Everything happens for a reason.”

‘His eyes just lit up’

The night Ramirez made his Wahlert debut, hundreds piled into the main gym to watch the Eagles wrestle Cedar Rapids Kennedy, Waterloo West and Iowa City West. Ramirez’s match against Iowa City West’s Nelson Brands was one of the highlights. Brands, a two-time defending state champ who’s ranked 12th nationally, edged Ramirez 6-5.

Ramirez wrestled Brands a few days later at the Mississippi Valley Conference tournament, where hundreds more were in attendance. Brands bear hugged Ramirez and scored a pin in the second period. But perhaps the biggest takeaways for Ramirez was the crowds at these big meets.

“He showed us some of the crowds from where he wrestled back in Louisiana,” Bartow says. “He’d only have like 30 people at a dual meet. I was like, 'just wait until we get a good home dual meet.'

“Then we told him about Wells Fargo, and that it holds (16,110), and his eyes lit just up. He just couldn’t believe that we got that type of attention in wrestling up here.”

Indeed, wrestling in Iowa is a different world than most places, and especially when compared to Louisiana. When Ramirez went to Fargo last July, Team Louisiana brought just six other kids along with him. Team Iowa, meanwhile, brought home nine All-Americans, good for a third-place team finish.

“Iowa is definitely on the other end of the spectrum,” Ramirez says when asked to compare wrestling in Iowa and Louisiana. “You don’t have Fargo finalists or All-Americans or nationally-ranked kids walking all over the place in Louisiana.

“Iowa wrestling compared to Louisiana — an Iowa state title means more than a Louisiana state title. I might have been the only kid from Louisiana that was nationally ranked last year. Up here, I’m one of many. I like that.”

During his short time, Ramirez has lived up to his No. 1 ranking. Of his nine wins, four are by fall and two more are by technical fall. He has two wins over 2A’s third-ranked Luke Hageman of Dyersville Beckman and another over 3A’s fifth-ranked Alex Ward of Dubuque Hempstead. He’s racked up 30 takedowns in his 11 matches.

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“Positionally, he does things I’ve never seen before, even from college wrestlers,” Allen says. “This guy, you better be thinking six moves ahead because he’s reacts to everything. He just keeps coming.”

“He pretty much has no problem taking anybody down. We’ve been working with him on pacing himself. I said, maybe we hand fight and take the shots that are open. He comes back with, ‘The problem is, when I get into a tie, there’s always a shot open.’ He can do it at will.”

Allen says this inside the Wahlert practice room. On the wall in the northwest corner, he’s listed the names of past Eagle wrestlers who reached state, placed at state and won 100 career matches. Above those are small shields to recognize all of the program’s state champions.

Ramirez says he’s looked at the wall every day since he first came to Wahlert. Only eight Eagle wrestlers have ever won state, the latest coming in 2014. Tristan Birt won the 106-pound title that year. Before then, Wil Kelly won in 1995, his third-straight title at the time.

In a moment of reflection after practice, Ramirez shoots a glance at the wall and cracks a grin. His face, he says, will be the next one up there.

“I’m not settling for anything other than my fourth state title.”

Cody Goodwin covers wrestling and high school sports the Des Moines Register. Follow him on Twitter at @codygoodwin.