Look: Rockland edges Camas County for first Idaho boys basketball state title in program history

NAMPA - It wasn’t the typical defensive performance that Rockland had been accustomed to.

But when it mattered most, the Bulldogs rose to the occasion.

Sophomore Teague Matthews blocked a game-winning 3-point attempt by Tristin Smith to preserve a 53-51 win over Camas County Saturday in the Idaho Class 1A Division II State Championship game at the Ford Idaho Center. It’s the first state title in program history.

“It doesn’t even seem real right now,” Matthews said. “I don’t think it’s really sunk in.”

Before Saturday, only one team had scored 50 or more points on them. And that came 24 hours earlier in a 63-62 overtime semifinal win over Carey. Camas County made that two days in a row with a pair of free throwers to tie the game at 51-51 with 22.9 seconds remaining.

Rockland went to the charity stripe itself after junior Brigham Permann drew a foul on a driving layin with only 8.5 seconds left. Permann calmly drained both of them to finish with a team-high 22 points.

“I’m just saying, ‘I gotta make these,’” Permann said. “I just have to calm myself down.

“I’ve been dreaming of this (moment) forever.”

Now it was up to the defense.

Smith drove the length of the court, handed it off before getting it back for a catch-and-shoot 3. But Matthews got all ball and the shot didn’t even get to the rim as the final horn sounded.

“That’s a team that usually scores 80 a game. So I think we did a really good job playing defense,” Matthews said. “We made plays when it counted.”

The No. 3 Bulldogs (23-3) overcame a porous start too. They made just one field goal in the first quarter and committed 18 first-half turnovers. It resulted in them trailing 19-9 with 2:06 left in the second quarter. But runs of 8-0 at the end of the first half and a 7-2 to close the third got Rockland back in the game and set the stage for a dramatic fourth quarter that featured 11 different lead changes alone.

“They get on that brink and they say, ‘Hey, it’s a tipping point,’” Rockland coach Shae Neal said. “We talk about that in practice. You’re gonna get down. They’re gonna make runs. Basketball is a game of runs. So when that happens, you just have to make sure that you go back to basics.”

The championship comes just two weeks after the girls basketball team won its second in three years. Before 2020, Rockland High School didn’t have a single banner in the rafter of its gymnasium. The Bulldogs will now have three.

“It’s gonna be a community party for weeks and weeks,” said Neal while holding his 2-year-old son Jett, who was wearing the No. 25 jersey that he donned back in the day. “We had to win it. We didn’t want the girls to make fun of us or whatever.”

Camas County senior Breken Clarke finished with a game-high 23 points for a double-double with 11 rebounds. Sophomore Emmett Palan added 11 points for the Mushers (22-4), who were at state for the first time in 17 years and playing in their first final since 1978.