One Final Ride: Teurlings Catholic’s Alex Rozas has enjoyed record-setting career
by William Weathers // GeauxPreps.com Contributor
Teurlings Catholic’s Alex Rozas has always embraced the torment that encompasses becoming an elite wrestler. The weekly grind of a 5 a.m. wakeup call to get to the gym and lift weights, practice for two hours, and either go to a private workout or teach younger kids on the mat has always appealed to him.
“I love the challenge,” Rozas said. “It just makes me stronger as a person. Having to get up early, work out, do all of the extra work. It translates to other things in life, not just wrestling.”
When it would have been fashionable for a high school teenager to want to hang out with friends, Rozas has remained on task. He’s never deviated from the workload needed to become one of the best wrestlers in Louisiana history.
Wrestling was love at first sight for Rozas after being introduced to the sport by his father, Chuck, a former wrestler at Northside High, when he was 3. That began with wrestling juniors until it was obvious the younger Rozas had something special, a talent so great that he went outside of his state’s borders to enhance his career.
Rozas has more than held on his own on a national scale, currently ranking eighth overall at 126 pounds. He’s already signed with Virginia Tech to continue a career that has one final chapter to finish in his home state.
“To have the opportunity to see him progress as a wrestler and refine what he’s done on the mat in a lot of different ways, it’s incredible to watch him mature as a wrestler,” Teurlings wrestling coach Kent Masson said. “Not just as a young man, but as a wrestler. He’s done everything that we’ve asked, and that’s kind of important as well.”
With Teurlings in search of its 13th Division II state championship, and fourth in five years, Rozas looks to polish his glittering credentials during this weekend’s LHSAA State Wrestling Tournament, which begins Friday at the Brookshire Grocery Arena in Bossier City.
Rozas, 202-8 overall, has the opportunity to become the only wrestler in state history to win the Louisiana Classic, Ken Cole, and state tournaments all four years in high school. Rozas, a three-time state champion at 106 (twice) and 120 pounds, has accumulated 11 titles in the three aforementioned events, surpassing the 10 by Airline’s Matt Rabinowitz and Basile’s Gavin Christ.
“It’s been a long high school career, but it also went by kind of fast,” Rozas said. “I’m pretty excited. I’m excited for it to be over.”
Rozas takes a 46-3 mark, highlighted by 10 pins and 33 tech falls, and a top seed into his final state tournament.
“There’s nothing he can do in Louisiana to top what he’s done already,” Masson said. “What he’s accomplished is hard to put into words sometimes. You have to understand the magnitude of what he’s accomplished. You’re witnessing history being made. It’s an amazing accomplishment. To watch it, it’s mind-blowing what this young man’s accomplished. He never ceases to amaze us.”
Masson, now in his 23rd season, continues to search for the right superlatives to capture Rozas’ career. This is coming from a former sportscaster in Lafayette accustomed to putting together his own scripts for local viewers for local viewership.
“When he came in, we knew who he was. We knew what he could do,” Masson said. “The main thing we did as a coaching staff was not to do anything wrong to hurt him, and I don’t think we have. We’ve given him opportunities to wrestle in some tournaments out of state that have absolutely helped him in the recruiting process. That was extremely important to him. I think we needed to do that for him because he is probably one of the most special wrestlers to come out of the entire state in Louisiana history.”
The fact that Rozas has won at least 50 matches in each of his first three seasons is remarkable, a plateau he will have the chance to reach once again this weekend.
Not only are his 202 career wins a staggering number, but of his eight career losses, he’s never lost to a competitor from Louisiana – a trend he intends to continue.
“Since I got into high school, that was always one of my goals, to go undefeated in Louisiana,” Rozas said. “There were goals like winning state four times, the Louisiana Classic four times. It’s really awesome to see them happen. My dreams are coming true. It’s really amazing, so I’m excited.
“It sounds crazy to say, but losing is one of the best things that can happen,” Rozas said. “I feel as though I learn a lot more from losing a match than I do from winning. You can pull out a tough win and learn a lot. But you lose a match, you’ve got stuff you’ve got to work on. You go back and watch the match, and you know what you’ve got to do. I love chasing those tough matches. It’s some of the best guys in the country, and to wrestle with them is awesome. You like the competition.”
Of his initial goals upon entering high school, Rozas wanted to go unscored upon. That lasted until the first tournament, when he allowed a point in a match he easily handled.
“I was pretty confident coming in,” he said of his first season. “Going undefeated was one of them (goals). When I got scored on in the first tournament, it was funny because I ended up beating the guy. I was hoping to not get scored on all year, and got scored on in the first tournament. I was still confident. I guess that’s from being really dominant.”
With an introduction to the sport at such a young age, Rozas literally grew up around wrestling, where his father coached a local club team. The elder Rozas also coached his son, who also played baseball and soccer until turning all of his attention to wrestling.
“My dad’s the one that got me into wrestling,” Rozas said. “I always looked up to him because he was my coach for a really long time. Up until I was about 13, I wasn’t sure I wanted to wrestle in college. I thought that I may be done with high school. I started wrestling and training harder. I was doing the extra work, and I fell in love with it more. That’s when I figured it was meant for me, and I wanted to take it a step further.”
Wrestling out of state was something Rozas said he began around 10 or 11 years of age. He traveled with his father to states such as Texas, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.
It was a trend that’s continued throughout high school and will include a couple of more stops in Ohio and Nevada once he concludes his high school career.
“That’s one of the most important things,” Rozas said of the out-of-state competition. “A lot of people can have the same training, but without chasing those really tough matches, some tough losses, it’s very hard to get better without all of that. I thought it was very important.”
Masson felt it was imperative for Rozas’ future to design a schedule that enabled him to compete out of state and gain notice from college recruiters.
“College football in Louisiana is like wrestling in the Midwest,” he said. “While everybody is so worried about college football in the South, everybody’s wrestling in the Midwest. They’ve been doing it since they were 3 years old, like Alex has. Louisiana wrestling is getting better and better, but is still far behind other states.
“It’s very difficult when you don’t have Division I or II wrestling in Louisiana,” Masson said. “Those colleges don’t necessarily come down here to recruit, and in order to be seen by those universities, you have to go to Virginia Beach or to Iowa. You have to go to these tournaments, like in (junior nationals) Fargo (North Dakota), so these college coaches can see you and see who you are.”
Rozas was a perfect 55-0 in his first season with 34 tech falls and 18 pins, including his first state title in 3 minutes, 33 seconds.
He was also successful on the national stage with national championships in the 100 and 106-pound USA Folkstyle cadet divisions. He added the 16U USA Freestyle National title at 106 and was fifth at the NHSCA National All-American event.
A 51-1 mark as a sophomore with five pins and 37 tech falls, wrapped up with a 7-0 decision for his second state championship, later winning the USA Folkstyle national junior title at 113 pounds.
“For him, he has self-motivation,” Masson said. “We’re not realistically coaching anything to help him as far as technique is concerned. He’s so sound in everything that he does. The coaching we give him is during the matches. He’s so sound in technique.
“He comes into the (wrestling) room, and we allow him to coach and teach the kids in the room right now,” Masson said. “He’ll give them a way to get to certain moves, certain takedowns, and combinations. He’s now become a teacher in the room, and that’s a blessing to have when you have somebody like that on your team.”
Rozas capped a 50-4 record last season, which included 26 tech falls, with a pin – his 13th of the season – in 1:11 for his third straight state title. He went on to earn All-America honors with a championship in the NHSCA nationals at 113 pounds and was fifth place in both the Beast of the East and Fargo All-American junior tournaments.
During the season, on his way to a third title in the Louisiana Classic, Rozas showed his resilience during the tournament. Battling a stomach virus that would have given a competitor cause to bow out, Rozas managed to pin his opponent in 25 seconds, his fourth in five matches, to win the coveted title.
“You’re not always going to feel good,” he said. “No one feels good every day, all of the time. You’ve just got to push through it.”
One of the benefits of wrestling in such hotbeds as Virginia, Iowa, and North Dakota is the exposure that comes with plying your trade in front of college coaches.
Rozas recalled being motivated by such collegiate standouts at Iowa’s three-time NCAA champion and five-time All-American Spencer Lee (2017-23), and Ke-Shawn Hayes, now an assistant at Catholic-Baton Rouge, with whom he’s worked, was a two-time NCAA qualifier.
“I looked up to both of them,” he said.
When Rozas won last year’s nationals, he received a text from the coaching staff at Virginia Tech, which had texted him once before.
With official visits already to North Carolina State and West Virginia, Rozas scheduled a trip to Blacksburg, Va., to look over the Hokies’ program.
“It was such a beautiful place,” he said. “The coaches were so nice. All of the team was fun to hang out with. They really pulled you in and made you feel like you belonged there. They offered, and I took it.”
Virginia Tech of the Atlantic Coast Conference is currently ranked seventh nationally and is trending upward with back-to-back stellar recruiting classes.
Rozas, a 4.0 student with designs on majoring in electrical engineering, is part of an eight-member signing class of coach Tony Robie that ranks second nationally.
“I’ve been watching Virginia Tech, and they’re doing good this year,” Rozas said. “Last year’s recruits were also a top two class, and even next year’s a top two. I’m excited. I can’t wait.”
Masson acknowledged the constant grind of the Division I level will present a test for Rozas.
“He has a lot of work ahead of him,” he said. “When he gets into the room at Virginia Tech, it’s going to be tough. He’s prepared for it. He knows what to expect, what he’s walking into. He understands he has to up his game as far as working in practice and getting better, so he can match the guys in that room.
“He’ll have 30 Alex Rozas’ in that room, and that’s going to be something he has to adjust to,” he said. “He’s the type of kid that will adjust to that.”
Rozas was one of four signees during a signing day ceremony in Teurlings’ cafeteria in December. Becoming the school’s first Division I wrestling signee represented the culmination of hard work and dedication to obtain such a goal.
“Coming into high school, I wasn’t really sure I wanted to wrestle in college,” he said. “I thought it may have been too much. The more you do it, the tougher it is, the more you fall in love with it. I kept doing it and thought about college. I started climbing up the rankings in the country. I knew I had to make a decision and definitely wanted to wrestle in college.
“It was an amazing feeling, all of that hard work, the dedication,” he said. “All of the family functions you miss. The time you miss hanging out with friends to train to get better. It’s all for that.”
Rozas won his first 16 matches this season until losing a 7-4 decision against Michael Bautista of New Jersey in the 2025 Ironman in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. He went 5-2 in the December tournament. A week later, he ran into Bautista in the Beast of the East, dropping a 5-1 decision, but went 6-1 overall to take the 126-pound championship.
He’s won his last 26 straight matches that included his fourth straight titles in both the Louisiana Classic and Ken Cole Classic.
“When I’ve coached kids that have been wrestling for a long period of time, and when they get near the end of their high school career, and they’ve been wrestling for a while, and they’re a senior, you can see it in their faces,” Masson said. “Sometimes they just want it to be over. With him, every time he steps on the mat, he has a big smile on his face. He’s ecstatic to be on the mat. That’s something you can’t force. It’s something you can’t coach. That’s something he has within himself.
“I wish we could have more kids be like that,” Masson said. “Wrestling is a grinding sport. If you are not invested in the sport, and you haven’t bought in, you’re going to get through high school and say, ‘Hey, I wrestled in high school. It takes a special person to say that he wants to go to the next level and have the drive to be able to do that, and that’s what he has.”
Rozas hasn’t deviated from his routine at Teurlings. When there’s no one who’s ever beaten you in your home state, finding ways to get better in practice could prove challenging, but there’s always been an attention to detail that’s never escaped a day of preparation.
There’s a focus on technique and the task of going against heavier wrestlers to help fine-tune everything for such a weekend as the state tournament.
“When you start looking ahead, that’s when you tend to overlook someone,” Rozas said. “That’s when you’re not ready for the match, and that’s when bad things happen. Take one match at a time, especially in the big tournaments I wrestle out of state. You’ve really got to focus in on the match you’re wrestling, don’t worry about the next one until you get the first one over with.”
This week’s final practices weren’t out of the ordinary, considering the end of a brilliant career was near.
Each day at 3 p.m. signified another day to get better and help a teammate achieve the same objective to help Teurlings win a state title.
Following mass on Thursday, which the entire team attended, they boarded a charter bus for Bossier City, where Rozas and seven other seniors set their sights on making their final trip together a successful one.
“My main focus this weekend is to have fun, it’s the last one,” Rozas said. “There’s not much more you can do to prepare the team or yourself. It’s go-time now. You have to trust the work you’ve put in, trust all of the extra time, and just have fun.”