Lehigh’s Logan Rozynski is a college wrestler who understands the importance of discipline both on and off the mat. Hailing from Sparta, N.J., Rozynski's journey to Lehigh was marked by a realization that it was the perfect fit for him.
“It just felt like a brotherhood and family right when I got here,” Rozynski said. “It felt like I was already a part of the team before I was even on the team. It just felt like the right fit.”
Inserted into the lineup as a freshman, Rozynski quickly made a name for himself. Last year, Rozynski won the EIWA Championship at 157 pounds and was an NCAA qualifier. He was also named the EIWA Freshman of the Year.
“I was just excited to get back out on the mat and do my thing,” Rozynski said. “Last year it showed me what I need to work on, and it exposed some things that I need to fix leading back up to this March.“That is again the end goal - to be my best in March.”
Coming out of the NCAA Championships last year, Rozynski was eager to get back into the room and make a big jump from his freshman success into his second year in the lineup.
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Rozynski's early success has been built on a foundation of strong values instilled by his father. “I was homeschooled in middle school, so I was around my dad a lot,” Rozynski said. “He preached certain things. Live the right way and the right results will come. If you're not doing those right things, then you can't expect the results that you're going to be happy with.“I've just been trying to do that throughout high school and college.”
There was an extra emphasis on training and pinpointing certain corrections that needed to be made, which included a trip overseas to go to Japan for training as well.
“This past offseason was good,” he said. “We did a lot of hard training, and I went over to Japan to get some exposure with those guys and that are good. That opened my mind to some different offensive attacks and how they wrestle. It was a good experience overall. “We focused on a lot of different shots. Upgrading my offense and getting more shots. I want to do the best job that I can to go out and put points on the board.”
Lehigh coach Pat Santoro was eager to sit down with Rozynski and map ways for him to improve and become an important starter in the middle of his lineup. Somebody who the Mountain Hawks will be relying on to score team points each time out.
“Last year, I think he was just trying to wrestle hard,” Santoro said. “But now he's figuring out the hand fight part. He's learning how to relax a little bit in matches and wrestle through positions well. There is more purpose to his wrestling.”
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This year, Rozynski’s 157-pound weight class is one of the deepest nationally, and one of the youngest. This week, Rozynski checks in at 12th in the rankings, as the top three and four of the top five are either freshmen or sophomores.
“His weight class is loaded,” Santoro said. “There are a ton of talented, younger guys. But he can beat anybody, and he has proven that.”
Although he only has six matches under his belt this season, one of those wins has given him some early-season confidence.
At the National Duals Invitational in mid-November, he was matched up against the returning national champion, Antrell Taylor of Nebraska, in his first match. Rozynski put the then-#1 Cornhusker on his back in the first period and went on to score a 9-1 major decision.
“It was a good result early, but doesn't mean anything,” Rozynski said. “For me and my coaches, we always knew that I was there. We always believed that I could take out those top guys and I belonged with the top dogs. I think now it shows everyone that didn't think that, that I am there.“You can't sit and think about that win too much because there's other guys gunning for you. I’ve got to go out, do my job, and take care of business.”
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Santoro has challenged Rozynski to step up and take on more of a leadership role on this year’s team.
“I think lead more by example both in the room and out,” the sophomore said. “I think building a team culture that we all want to win and doing the right things.
“When a younger kid steps up and does that it spreads throughout the team and a lot of guys get on board with it and then that only builds up. That leads to great team culture like we are building here.”
Rozynski had to injury default out of his last match, back on Dec. 7. He also was out of action this past weekend at the Collegiate Duals, but according to the Lehigh staff, he will not be out long-term.
“He still needs some work to be ready for March, which is the ultimate goal, but he knows that,” Santoro said. “He's not afraid to put the work in. He's a hard worker. He's always excited. He wants to compete every time out there.
In his first appearance on the big stage, Rozynski went 1-2. He defeated Christopher Hamblin, Oregon State University redshirt sophomore, and fell to Oklahoma State senior Caleb Fish and Ryder Downey, University of Northern Iowa redshirt sophomore.
“I made a huge jump coming from high school, and that summer we made a lot of adjustments for getting ready for the collegiate season,” Rozynski said. With offseason training approaching, he couldn’t celebrate winning his awards for too long.
“It’s pretty cool to have your name in a category with some of the greats,” Rozynski said. “We talk about that a lot with the coaches,” Lopes said. He also said Rozynski is a great teammate to everyone and stepped up as a leader who was willing to make sacrifices for his team.
Lehigh junior wrestler Ryan Crookham, who won the EIWA Freshman of the Year award last year, said he knew Rozynski was going to be a special part of the team after his performance at a tournament in the Midlands Championships on Dec.
“He had confidence that he could perform before getting to the show,” he said. “Sometimes you have to believe before the results.
“I think he learned at the NCAA tournament he was in every single match he could’ve won,” Santoro said. For Rozynski, this has been the standard all season. “You have to live the right way on and off the mat,” Rozynski said.
Rozynski, who will meet No. 12 seed Caleb Fish (18-9) of Oklahoma State in his opening bout, presents an intriguing case at nationals. His only loss in 2025 is 10-6 to Penn’s Jude Swisher, the No. 14 seed at the NCAAs; he and Swisher split two meetings at Midlands. Another of Rozynski’s losses is to No. 1 seed Tyler Kasak of Penn State, the former Bethlehem Catholic state champion, by a 5-2 count in their December dual meet. Rozynski was by no means outclassed in that defeat and was indeed quite competitive.
“I fully believed from the start of the season, that though my main goal was to be (an All-American) at nationals, I believe I can win nationals,” Rozynski said. “I am competing at the top level I have all season now. Winning the EIWA was nice, but you can’t get caught up too much. The ultimate goal is winning nationals.”
Lehigh hasn’t had a national champion since Darian Cruz in 2017, though the last time the NCAAs were at the Wells Fargo Center (2011) the Mountain Hawks sent Zach Rey to the top of the podium. The Mountain Hawks have had a respectable run of All-American performances, including three last season, of which only 197-pounder Michael Beard is competing this time. The schedule is different this year as well, as there was a week between the EIWA and nationals; that was not the case in 2024.
“I do think the extra week really helped to help people who were banged up a little to get ready,” Rozynski said. “We’ve been able to do more preparation. I think we outwork everybody with what we do in our room, especially conditioning. We’re peaking at the right time and making sure we’re healthy, tuning things to be positive when the time comes.”
Rozynski, a Sparta resident, credited the Mountain Hawks’ coaching staff and training for providing the key element is in his improvement as a wrestler this season - his overall mat awareness. “We’re looking to improve every day,” he said.
Much of Rozynski’s family will be on hand in Philadelphia, including his grandparents. “They are my biggest fans,” he said of his grandparents. “They make every one of my competitions they can make,”
Just look at perhaps the greatest of them all, current Penn State coach Cael Sanderson, who went 159-0 in four years for Iowa State. That’s’ 40 matches a season.
Nowadays, that would be very rare. Much more typical is Lehigh freshman Logan Rozynski, the EIWA 157-pound champion, who enters this weekend’s NCAA Division I championship at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia with a 19-5 record. Even were he to wrestle the max number of matches possible for a #21 seed - eight - at nationals, he’s still nowhere near 40. The change reflects a shift in the way of thinking at college wrestling - more isn’t necessarily better.
Lehigh has been in the vanguard of such moves, skipping (mostly) the large major tournaments and wrestling fewer duals. This season, Lehigh wrestled 11 duals. For comparison, Little Rock wrestled 20, Rutgers 19, South Dakota State 18. No team in the final NWCA Top 25 wrestled fewer duals than Lehigh, though Virginia Tech and Army each equaled Lehigh’s 11. The trend is, though, downward for everybody. It’s unquestionably so that high-level scholastic wrestlers compete much more often than Lehigh.
Take Nazareth senior Tahir “Tig” Parkins, who ended his senior season at 50-0. Northern Lebanon’s Aaron Seidel, the new all-time PIAA wins leader, wrestled 206 bouts in his four years.
Rozynski, who is one of six Lehigh entries in the national tournament that opens at noon on Thursday, said he’s comfortable with the number of bouts wrestled.
“I had some matches that don’t count towards my record, so I was more around 25-30 bouts, and that feels like the perfect amount you need,” he said. “I don’t think you need more. You can hit the open tournaments if you need experience but I don’t think you need to get concerned over your match count.”
Rozynski was one of the Mountain Hawks who competed at the Midlands Tournament near Chicago between Christmas and New Year’s. The Midlands has tons of prestige due an illustrious history but isn’t quite the same competitively it was 20 years ago. However, the half a dozen bouts a first-year wrestler such as Rozynski got at Midlands may have proved critical from an experience point of view, if less necessary for more senior wrestlers.
“I think my results at Midlands were pretty good, looking back at them, and gave me a good feeling about how I was competing,” Rozynski said. “I think if you look at where I performed the best, it was the EIWA tournament, the most important of all, and I just want to keep doing the right things going forward.”
Logan Rozynski, Lehigh vs Antrell Taylor, Nebraska | 2025 National Duals Invitational
Here’s a summary of Logan Rozynski’s results from the 2024-2025 season:
| Date | W/L | Result | Opponent | Opp. Team | Event | Rnd. | Wt. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 03/21 | L | DEC 1-0 | R. Downey | Northern Iowa | 2025 NCAA Division I Championships | Cons. Round 2 | 157 |
| 03/21 | W | DEC 7-3 | C. Hamblin | Oregon State | 2025 NCAA Division I Championships | Cons. Round 1 | 157 |
| 03/20 | L | DEC 2-0 | C. Fish | Oklahoma State | 2025 NCAA Division I Championships | Champ. Round 1 | 157 |
| 02/22 | W | DEC 10-4 | M. Nies | American | Drexel / Lehigh | Round 1 | 157 |
| 02/01 | W | F 2-0 3:28 | D. Sanko | Virginia | 2024 Sheridan Tournament | Semi-Finals | 157 lbs |
| 12/20 | W | MD 15-4 | B. Templeton | F&M | 2024 Sheridan Tournament | Quarter-Finals | 157 lbs |
| 12/20 | W | MD 12-1 | J. Iznaga | Drexel | 2024 Sheridan Tournament | Round of 16 | 157 lbs |
| 12/08 | L | DEC 5-1 | T. It |
These results showcase Rozynski’s performance in various tournaments and dual meets, highlighting his wins and losses throughout the season. The table provides a quick overview of his matches, opponents, and outcomes, reflecting his journey and progress in collegiate wrestling.
