Centennial pulls off another upset to complete Cinderella run to Idaho 5A state title game

NAMPA - The Patriots are no one-hit wonder.

The Centennial High School boys basketball team proved it wasn’t a fluke with another upset. This time it was No. 5 Rigby, which actually handed the Patriots their third straight loss and sent them to 4-5 back on Dec. 30. 

But they got payback when it mattered most.

Centennial stunned the Trojans 61-53 Friday in the semifinals of the Idaho Class 5A Boys State Tournament at the Ford Idaho Center to become the first eighth seed to advance to a final.

The Patriots (16-10) will play No. 2 Owyhee (23-3) at 8 p.m. Saturday in the 5A state championship game at the Ford Idaho Center.

“I think people are starting to believe a little bit,” Centennial senior Kaden Christensen said. “We made it here as an eight seed. It’s really incredible what we did as a team.”

Especially after having to come back down to earn from the high that was knocking off No. 1 Lake City 24 hours earlier. But Centennial came to play right out of the game. After trading the lead back-and-forth with Rigby (17-9), it took over in second with a 17-5 run to go into the locker room up 35-22..

That mainly had to do with its barrage of 3-pointers.

The Patriots went 8-of-14 (57.1%) in the first half. Senior Tyler Shipp had five of those himself.

“We can shoot,” Centennial coach Josh Aipperspach said. “Now everybody knows it.

And now everyone knows that even when the 3s are not falling, Centennial still finds ways to win games. It went just 2-of-6 in the second half. But still never relinquished the lead.

The closest it came was when Trojan senior Karson Barber drained a free throw to cut it down to 48-42 with 4 minutes and 45 seconds remaining in the game. Aipperspach had to burn a timeout on the ensuing play because the Patriots were in danger of getting a 10-second backcourt violation.

“Honestly, in that timeout, I didn’t have to say much,” Aipperspach said. “They know what to do. We put them in situations in practice. People say it all the time, but a player-led team is going to be more successful than a coach-led team.

“They calm themselves down.”

That’s exactly what happened too.

Centennial scored the next four points to put the lead back to double digits. Rigby got within eight points on a tip-in by junior Noah Nunez. But a few seconds later, junior Hayden Fletcher was dribbling out the final seconds before throwing the ball high in the air to celebrate the Patriots advancing to a state championship game for the first time since 2017.

“I know a lot of people on that team,” Christensen said. “They’ve been texting me and talking to me. They looked a lot like our team. They were doubted.

“They had a lot of bad games and they got there.”

‘Bad games’ for this year’s group may be an understatement.

Six of Centennial’s losses have come by at least 16 points, including a 33-point blowout loss to Mountain View in the opening round of the district tournament, leaving them on the brink of elimination

“When our backs are against the wall, we play our best basketball,” said Shipp, who totaled a team-high 17 points. “That’s why we believe. We mentally prepare every single week to get the job done and got a chance tomorrow to do it.”

Christensen and Fletcher also reached double figures in scoring with 14 and 10 points, respectively, for the Patriots, who now face arguably their toughest test in Owyhee. The Storm have arguably the most talented team in the state with several Division I prospects, including sophomore Liam Campbell, who is ranked top-30 nationally in his class.

Owyhee also routed Centennial during the regular season by 29 and then 25 points.

However, that was then, this is now.

“We didn’t come this far to lose,” Shipp said. “We’re gonna win.”

Barber tallied a game-high 20 points. Senior Sam Kunz (14) and junior Jakobe Jones (13) also got into double figures for the Trojans, who will play No. 6 Meridian (18-10) in the third-place game at noon Saturday at Columbia High School.