Even as he has moved up in weight class during his wrestling career, Sam Houston High senior Tyson Roach is usually one of the lighter competitors each time.

It hasn’t prevented him from being one of the top wrestlers in the state.

The two-time state champion is 30-0 and ranked No. 1 at 126 pounds in Crescentcitysports.com’s most recent weekly rankings on Tuesday, with five wins over the next three in the rankings: Bodi Harris (Jesuit), Kaiden Triche (Archbishop Rummel) and Ozias Gray (Acadiana).

“I have been used to it,” Roach said. “When I was a kid I remember at little kids folk-style state I put my dad’s phone in my singlet to make myself weigh more and I was still a good 6 or 7 pounds underweight.

“My freshman year I would say close to 10 (pounds) underweight. I remember sitting at the table with the team pigging out before weigh-ins. Last year I walked in there and could have made 113, and I went 126 so our 120 could get a state championship, and we pulled it off successfully.”

With a 153-11 record over four seasons, and a state title at the Division I and II levels, it is hard to call Roach, who has signed with Division I Arkansas-Little Rock, an underdog, but he would rather be one as it helps him to continually push himself and keep the attention off him.

“I always like being the underdog,” Roach said. “I don’t like everyone’s eyes on me.

“I like their eyes on me when they are at the top. Everything you do is in this mat room. It is just us and the team, no one else is here watching us put in work. I don’t like all the attention. I mean, I will get it when I get there, but I don’t think I am there yet.”

He has won 22 matches by pin. Gray almost beat him in the final of the Warrior Open on Nov. 4, but Roach won 7-5 in overtime.

He has piled up accolades this season while traveling the country. He has won four outstanding wrestler awards at tournaments in multiple states. The most recent was at the Stewart Schay Black Horse Invitational in Germantown, Tennessee.

“I felt like I was most fluid in every single match,” Roach said of his Tennessee performance. “I never stopped. I was always pushing the pace, and I ended up pinning everybody and was winning by a certain amount of points every time.”

Roach has been watching other top wrestlers from throughout the country to find ways to improve.

“A big thing was movement,” Roach said. “I was watching all the big names, like Aaron Seidel (North Lebanon HS, Pennsylvania) at Super 32.

“I didn’t move like he did on defense and his reactions and counters. That is what I have been working on a lot — moving with more speed, moving around and never stopping. This year it feels like a lot of things are starting to come together, so now it is all about finding what I need to improve on.”

And he has no problem putting his perfect record on the line. He will wrestle at the Beast of the East tournament next week at the University of Delaware. It is considered one of the top in-season high school tournaments.

“There are still people making names (in Louisiana), but in order to be in that top percent you have to go out of state and make a sacrifice,” Roach said. “A record and everything is cool, but I like to wrestle.

“Don’t get me wrong, it would be pretty cool to have an undefeated record, but as long as I am getting a good match and I am improving, it is all that matters.”

Early on, Roach said he figured he would be a baseball player, but his father and current Broncos head coach Michael Roach, helped to get the high school team and junior wrestling program going, along with former head coach Bobby Aucoin.

“My dad moved here from Oklahoma his senior year in high school, and he had to go over and work with Sulphur because they didn’t have a team at Sam Houston,” Roach said. “I used to always play baseball.

“My mom thought I was going to be a baseball kid, and everyone in the family was going to be a baseball kid. One day, he came over and asked me if I wanted to try out wrestling. He and Bobby Aucoin thought about it one day because Bobby Aucoin’s son, Andrew, wanted to wrestle, so my dad had a deal that they would do it at the high school if they had a junior program for me. So my dad somewhat forced me into it, but I am glad he did.”

Michael Roach attributes his son’s success to his dedication to training outside of regular practices.

“The big thing Tyson is known for is his endurance,” Michael Roach said. “He runs 2 miles a day.

“What happens is most of his matches are very close in the first period, and in the second period he starts running away with it. All the kids know it. We practice five days a week, two hours a day, but if they want to get to that next level they have to run on their own and workout on their own. Wrestling is so demanding. He is a lot stronger.

“His whole life he has always been the smallest kid in the weight class. Even his sophomore year, when he was 106, he could eat whatever he wanted to. He is very technical, but there have been times this year when I have watched him wrestle someone who is technical like he is, and he just overpowers them. I think that has really helped.”