Yodice: Mason Posa reaches the final day of a glorious prep career

If we removed the turf and kept only the mats from the Mason Posa career retrospective at La Cueva, he’d still be leaving as one of New Mexico’s prep titans.

If we separated his time in pads from his time in a singlet, he’d still be every bit a state, and Bears, legend.

Which brings us to this weekend. His days as a La Cueva athlete end on Saturday at the Rio Rancho Events Center, in what could reasonably be described as a quintessential Mason Posa exit.

His memorable four-season varsity football career at La Cueva ended on Thanksgiving weekend. Was there a more well-rounded, wrecking ball of a football player in New Mexico last fall than Posa? Or even the fall before that? These hardly need answering, really; the questions are rhetorical.

And soon, he’ll be bound for Madison, Wisconsin, to embark on a college football career.

But here at the end of February, this is important to note: Posa’s winter prowess was, and is, at least as impressive as his autumn prowess.

He already has three individual state wrestling championships. Two more victories on Saturday will place him in elite company,

Only three boys from an Albuquerque Public Schools wrestling program have earned four, and none in 13 years.

But this relatively vanilla description hardly does justice to the gravity of what’s ahead for Posa on Saturday.

First, know that his father, La Cueva head coach Javier Posa, is one of those many members of the three-timers club. Posa won a trio of state titles, from 1988-90 at Santa Fe High.

From that perspective, this has been a fun pursuit for Mason, insomuch as two more victories Saturday — in the semifinals at 10 a.m., and, if he wins, in the championship match Saturday night — would break the tie with his father. There has been a good bit of jovial and spirited give-and-take about this between the two throughout Mason’s career, they told me when asked about this a year ago.

The pursuit — multiple pursuits, really — leads to this final day in a La Cueva Bear uniform, since Posa has indicated he won’t participate in a spring sport.

Posa is 41-0 this season, and largely unchallenged.

And this brings in another aspect to this particular tournament.

Posa could join a short list of wrestlers who won four state titles at four different weight classes.

He was the winner at 160 pounds in 2022.

He was the champ at 189 pounds in 2023.

He conquered the 215-pound bracket 12 months ago.

Through Friday, Posa has lost exactly three times in nearly four seasons, and not since his sophomore season. At his four state tournaments, he’s never been seriously in danger of losing. Not once. In fact, he’s dominated pretty much every postseason match in his career. That includes two quick pins on Friday.

And now we arrive at what is, to me, the most intriguing aspect to Posa’s chase for a fourth trip top the top of the podium.

Although he competed at 215 pounds for most of the season, he made the decision three weeks ago at the Albuquerque Metro Championships to jump into the heavyweight division, which is officially listed as the 285-pound division.

Posa, at about 210 pounds, won the metro title wrestling peers who were much heavier than himself. He said afterward he was dog-tired, and why wouldn’t he be, since he had to do four matches in a single day against heavier competition. But his speed, his quickness, his inherent and beastly strength, was too much for even the biggest boys of New Mexico prep wrestling.

He won’t have to do anything like that at state. The first two rounds were Friday.

In the state semifinals, he’s facing Israyel Barraza of Manzano, whom Posa routed in the final at metros. (Riley Haussler from Cleveland, the 2 seed, looms as a possible worthy adversary in the finals, if Posa advances and Haussler defeats Noah Lynn of Roswell in the other semi.)

The word I used near the start was quintessential, a word that is used deliberately.

Posa did not need to wrestle at heavyweight this weekend. He could have remained at 215 and likely would have shredded his way through the bracket.

Instead, he made the choice, a brave one, to step up and battle the heavyweights. And among the four- and five-time individual champions, I’ve not encountered one, that I can recall, who was attempting this in the heaviest weight divisions. Those moving weight classes were usually at the lighter and middle weights.

Mason Posa knows full well what’s on the line at this tournament, and clearly has thrown down the proverbial gauntlet at his own feet.

If you watched him play football, a sport he played with tremendous skill, ferocity and determination from his linebacker position, then his decision to challenge himself this way is hardly surprising.

How will it end Saturday? It’s high school athletics, nothing is 100% certain.

I will say this: About 7:30 Saturday night, Posa seems very likely to be on the mat as one of the last two kids to wrestle in a New Mexico high school match this season.

And if he is one half of that final two, that would be fitting, as it affords him a chance to seize the spotlight one last time, making a literal grab for history.