CONCRETE — Quilcene’s Mason Iverson will stride into a jam-packed Tacoma Dome later this month and find himself in the middle of the Mat Classic madness after making some wrestling history earlier this week.
Iverson pinned his way to the District 1/2/3 Class 1B/2B championship in the 215-pound weight bracket at Concrete High School on Wednesday to become the first student to ever represent Quilcene at Mat Classic, the state wrestling championships, set Feb. 20-22.
“I’m pretty grateful to my coaches and to my dad for helping me make it here,” Iverson said. “It wouldn’t have happened without a lot of work, so I thank our athletic director [Mark Thompson] for helping it happen. It’s going to be a new experience. I’ve heard it is a pretty intense atmosphere.”
A homeschooled senior who was a three-year starter playing fullback and linebacker for the Quilcene Rangers football team and who spent two seasons playing basketball, Iverson inquired about making the move back to the mat this winter.
“I wrestled for four years before this and for Kelso High School as a freshman before our family moved to Quilcene,” Iverson said.
Iverson last wrestled in Kelso as a high school freshman, and for the last two seasons has been a member of the Quilcene basketball team in the winter. He excels in many sports, including football, baseball, track and powerlifting.
Iverson also lifts weights competitively, earning a state power-lifting championship in 2024.
“He was the state power-lifting champ in the 220-pound weight class,” Rangers football coach Trey Beathard said. “Power-lifting isn’t divided by classification, so he was the all-around champ.”
East Jefferson coaches were happy to have him join the team and have appreciated his presence.
“Mason created a large support group on our team in his only year of wrestling with East Jefferson due to his great work ethic, kindness and leading by example every day at practice,” assistant coach Joey Johnson said. “He is a very coachable athlete. We can’t wait for him to succeed at state.”
Iverson has faced some strong competition this season, including participating in both the Hammerhead Tournament in Silverdale and the Gut Check Tournament at the Showare Arena in Kent, both events featuring more than 1,000 competitors.
At the district meet, Iverson earned quick pins at 1:37 of his match with Friday Harbor’s Jax Martinez and then pinned another Friday Harbor wrestler, Niko Salas, at the 1-minute mark to run his season record to 18-9.
Iverson said his power-lifting background is important, but it’s not completely responsible for his success.
“My strength still helps a lot, but muscles and strength don’t win every match,” Iverson said. “I’ve had to get in conditioning shape.”
Iverson said East Jefferson practices use the entire campus for conditioning, including uninterrupted eight-minute-long stair-climbing sessions in the main high school building.
“I feel like I learned that I can push my body a lot further than I thought I ever could, and that it’s better to suffer than to be a quitter,” Iverson said. “Going through a hard wrestling practice makes you feel like you can go through anything.”
New postseason
He’s also the first North Olympic Peninsula wrestler to qualify for state this season, and the first to do so under the new district system that replaced regionals this season.
During the past decade, Mat Classic has had to make minor tweaks from year to year as the sport’s popularity has grown across the state.
But the boom in interest — especially on the girls side — has forced the WIAA to make one of its biggest adjustments yet as the state tournament will go from two days to three this year with expanded bracket sizes across the seven classifications.
“A lot of the changes came down to conversations with the state coaches association and athletic directors to figure out the direction they wanted to go,” said Justin Kesterson, assistant executive director at the WIAA.
The other major shift is the elimination of the regional round, which traditionally took place between districts and Mat Classic. Now each of the six WIAA districts will run their own tournaments to assign state allotments, and the qualifying wrestlers from those tournaments will go directly to the Tacoma Dome.
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Sports reporter/columnist Michael Carman can be contacted at sports@ peninsuladailynews.com.
East Jefferson’s Mason Iverson, right, wrestles against Zachary McNight of Life Christian, No. 8 in the Class 1A rankings during a Jan. 29 match. Iverson earned a first-round pin in the match and recently became the first Quilcene student to qualify for the state wrestling tournament.
