Bulldog wrestling puts down Johnston City

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[It was almost as if Johnnie Donaldson knew the end was near for his opponent.

The Harrisburg High School junior heavyweight used his size and strength to his advantage, bringing down Johnston City's big man with a smile on his face as if he knew he had wrapped up another victory, and this time with a little bit of style.

The Bulldogs varsity team defeated Johnston City 60-21 in what will be Harrisburg's final match of the 2009 calendar year.

Head coach Greg Langley said he was pleased with the team's performance in Thursday night's contest.

"I'm very proud of them. They're a young group and I've said that all along, so anytime you can get more and more experience and get better as the season goes along it's really nice," Langley said.

The long-time Harrisburg head coach also received a 60-6 victory by his junior varsity squad, which had little problem in toppling the Indians. The Bulldogs swept through their opponents until Tim Jeffries met his match at the heavyweight class, losing by pinfall in a hard-fought battle.

Langley said it was good for both squads to pick up victories because it allowed athletes to get mat time against real-time competition before the team's long layoff.

Riley Jones and Dylan Davis were two of the wrestlers that caught Langley's eye. Both came from behind when it looked as if each would go down without much of a comeback.

Jones lost by third round decision, while Davis battled back from a few times where it looked as if he was going to take a loss before earning a victory of his own by pinfall.

Langley said all he asks the wrestlers is to put forth a full effort on a nightly basis.

"I always tell them give 100 percent and if you get beat by someone better than you, so be it. That's just the way things go sometimes," Langley said. "But now we'll be off for a while and we'll need to get better with our technique and our offense, and we'll keep working away like that.

"Sometimes we've been at this point we needed to recoup a little bit. This year I think it will give us some times to work on some things."