When Oakland Mills's Anthonio Josiah stood atop the award platform last spring to accept a county wrestling title, his coach realized a part of a long journey had been completed.

Thirteen months, just 13 months," said Oakland Mills Coach Brad Howell. "Thirteen months ago he walked into the wrestling room as a freshman on third string and had never wrestled a match in his life and even had a tough time communicating because his English wasn't so good. And now look at him. He's a county champion. It's just an incredible story."

Josiah entered the week 16-2, continuing a journey that began 17 years ago in a poor section of Ghana, in west Africa, where he shared an eight-room house with his mother, his three siblings and four other families. His family, members of the Ga tribe, had no indoor plumbing. The lone source of water was an outdoor spigot next to the outhouse.

But it was home to Josiah and his family after his father, Ebenezer, immigrated to Maryland in 1990. His father worked in a pizza restaurant for seven years to earn enough money to bring his children to America, which he did in 1997.

"Everyday I would dream of the day I could bring my family to America because they would have a better opportunity here," said Ebenezer Josiah, now a supervisor for a wholesale foods distributor in Takoma Park and divorced from Anthonio's mother. "I missed them so much, but I couldn't make as much money in Ghana as I could here, and I had to take care of them."

Anthonio was 6 when his father left, and it was during the next seven years he gained his experience in hand-to-hand combat -- on the city streets.

"That's how [the Ga] settle arguments or disagreements," said Horace Dei, information officer of the Embassy of Ghana in Washington. "If someone says something you don't like or if two men like the same girl, they fight. The fight lasts for 15 minutes, and then it's over. It's about respect."

Said Anthonio, now 17: "I got in more fights than I can remember. I would fight a few times a week, but I would never use a weapon, just my hands. It's how you got respect. I didn't always win, but I won most of them."

Anthonio has a half-inch scar on his right wrist, the most visible reminder of his days in his native country. "The kid was a few years older than me, and I don't even remember what we were fighting about," Josiah said. "But after I head-butted him, he pulled a knife and started swinging. But I still took him down."

He believes those street experiences helped him flourish at Oakland Mills, on and off the mat.

"I like to fight, and it's fun, but you get in trouble if you fight on the street, so now I wrestle instead," Josiah said. "I love it because it's just you against your opponent, and the tougher one wins."

Said Howell: "He's always had the strength, but the only thing he didn't have was time on the mat to get experience. His basic skills are as strong as anybody's, but he has to learn what moves to do in certain situations. He's learning more and more each day, but until he has that experience, he just has to outwork his opponents who have more experience than him."

Josiah also has a 3.0 grade-point average.

"He's one of the hardest working kids I had in class," said Emma Ames, who taught Josiah Algebra I last year. "Even if we took a small quiz, he would come up to me after class and have me find out how his score on his quiz would affect his overall grade. You can see he cares tremendously about his grades."

"I can't imagine how hard it was for him. Imagine if you only took Spanish for a few years and then had to take a math class that was taught entirely in Spanish. You first have to understand the language, then you have to understand the algebra part."

Josiah knows his journey is far from over. He dreams of winning a state title and is poised for what could be an even more successful senior year he hopes ends with getting admitted to college.

"I've done a lot of things that I'm proud of, and there have been a lot of people who have helped me along the way," he said. "If I keep working hard, I think they can all come true."