Jayden De La Rosa Makes History at State Wrestling Tournament

Jayden De La Rosa walked into the California state wrestling tournament this spring carrying the weight of history and came out having made some.

The Burbank High senior, competing at 150 pounds, finished in the top 16 in the state, two matches away from placing. It was the deepest run a Burbank High wrestler has made in the state tournament, and coach Jonathon O’Brien wants people to understand what that actually means.

“With 894 schools in California with wrestling, that puts him in the top 1.7 percent of wrestlers in his weight class,” O’Brien said. “An incredible accomplishment that we may not see again for some time at Burbank High.”

De La Rosa entered the state tournament with an 85-9 career record and a 22-2 mark this season, numbers that reflect four years of sustained excellence in a program that didn’t exist when he was a freshman. O’Brien took over as head coach when Burbank launched its wrestling program in the 2022-2023 school year, and De La Rosa has been a fixture on the mat since day one.

The postseason run started with a CIF championship, which De La Rosa described as a stepping stone rather than a destination. That title carried its own historic weight. Burbank High had not produced a CIF wrestling champion since 1993.

“We haven’t had a CIF champion since 1993, and it is a surreal experience to make history for the school with this first place finish for Burbank,” De La Rosa said.

From there, the goal was a state medal. He came close.

“The state tournament was a surreal moment. I went to the tournament with so many mixed emotions, but the end goal was to bring home a medal,” De La Rosa said. “Even though I barely fell short of my goal, I am still thankful and proud of how I performed and how I was able to make history for Burbank High.”

O’Brien saw something at the state tournament that separated De La Rosa from simply being a talented wrestler. It was how he competed when things got hard.

“It was a privilege to coach Jayden in his last tournament. He wrestled the best we’ve ever seen,” O’Brien said. “Not just in terms of technical proficiency, but his mental toughness and preparation were top notch.”

The coach pointed to De La Rosa’s losses as much as his wins when explaining what the wrestler means to the program.

“In each of his losses he didn’t stop attacking until the final whistle, and that’s what we’re looking for at any level for Burbank wrestling, whether it be a beginner tournament or the state tournament,” O’Brien said.

De La Rosa has his father, Romney De La Rosa, on the sideline with him. Romney serves as an assistant coach on the Burbank staff, which gives the family’s wrestling journey an added layer. Jayden has spoken about wanting to continue wrestling at the college level, and the foundation he built at Burbank High gives him a credible path to do that.

What De La Rosa built over four years matters beyond the trophies. He competed in a brand-new program, helped establish its culture, and then pushed that program onto the state’s biggest stage. That kind of trajectory doesn’t happen by accident. It takes a wrestler willing to grind through the early seasons of a startup program while keeping larger goals in view.

O’Brien understands the loss his program is absorbing with De La Rosa’s graduation. The talent, the mentality, and the relentless forward pressure De La Rosa brought to every match are qualities programs spend years trying to develop in athletes. He had them already.

For Burbank High, a school with strong athletic traditions across multiple sports, this wrestling run adds a new chapter. The program is only four years old. It now has a CIF champion, a state qualifier who finished in the top 16 statewide, and a coach who knows what it takes to get there.

De La Rosa didn’t win a state title. But he competed like he intended to, right up until the final whistle.