Dallas Dragons will their way to 5A wrestling crown: ‘I think we just wanted this one as a team and as a family’

“We just bonded together over the season ... just cheering each other on and hyping each other up was the difference”

Joseph Johnson took the mat Saturday night for his 120-pound championship match at the OSAA Class 5A wrestling state tournament knowing the stakes. 

A win for the Dallas junior against district rival Colton Hankey of Crescent Valley would slam the door on the third team title in the program’s history.

And Johnson acknowledged feeling the nerves. 

“I’d wrestled Colton at districts, and he was a tough match, one of the toughest I’d had this season,” Johnson said. “After he beat the No. 1 seed (Ryder Lee of Redmond), I thought, ‘OK, he’s sending me a message.’

“I knew he was going to be a hard match, but I guess my desire to win was greater than my fear of losing.”

Johnson scored a takedown in the final five seconds of the opening period, then reversed Hankey and pinned the freshman with 46 seconds left in the second round to put the finishing touch on the Dragons’ championship at Portland’s Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

“I know my team has worked so hard for this title,” Johnson said. “I wanted to give my team the glory that they needed.”

Austin Markee, who took over the program this season from longtime coach Tony Olliff, joked that he found out about clinching the title in the warmup room from a fellow coach.

“That’s not how I imagined that going down,” he said. “We knew it would be close — we just had to go win some matches. But we just have some awesome coaches. A lot of the credit goes to those guys. We’ve got 12 coaches who show up every day. They’re just awesome.”

Johnson was the only individual champion among the 12 Dragons to make the podium, but it was their performance in the placing rounds that was key. Dallas went 6-3 in that round — with one match featuring two Dragons — to retake the lead from Thurston.

“We just bonded together over the season, and I think that bond has just grown throughout the season,” Johnson said. “So, I guess just cheering each other on and hyping each other up was the difference. I think we just wanted this one as a team and as a family.”

The Colts finished second for the second consecutive season, again by an agonizingly small margin — 17.5 points after a seven-point defeat to Redmond a year ago.

Thurston had the lead after the semifinals, when the Colts put four in the finals, but only one — 144-pound junior Colton Annis — ended up winning a title. A 2-5 record in the placing round also did the Colts no favors. 

The Panthers, who last season won their first championship since 1959, finished third behind title-winners Joseph Downing (150) and Jared Ake (157). Crater returned to the podium for the second consecutive year by finishing fourth, led by champions Jeremiah Oliva (113), Aidan Godley (126) and Joey Hutchins (138). 

Nine schools went home with champions.

Mountain View matched Crater with three titlists, including two-timers Scout Santos (132) and Jackson Potts (175) along with 106-pound sophomore Aiden Nelmes.

Canby junior Jackson Doman completed an undefeated season at 215 with a 6-2 decision over Dallas’ Cole Langford in a rematch of their Reser’s Tournament of Champions final. Silverton junior Brash Henderson also went unbeaten for the season in winning the 285 title. 

Bend’s Leif Larwin won a battle of freshmen in the 165 final against Hillsboro’s Arturo Echeverria, and Arturo’s older brother Preston repeated as 190-pound champion. 

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