Blue Devils bully Challis in 1A championship; Dietrich claims second banner, Challis takes second trophy
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NAMPA — Challis’ pursuit of joining teams the likes of the 1983 NC State Wolfpack and 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team ended Saturday, as midnight arrived for the 1A tournament’s Cinderella.
Challis (16-12) upset bracket favorites Watersprings — in round one — and Rockland — in the semifinals. But the Dietrich Blue Devils and center Brody Torgerson (22-3) were too much for the Vikings.
The two teams went back and forth through the first four-plus minutes, until Dietrich grabbed an 8-7 lead on a Connor Perkins bucket with three minutes left in the first quarter. They never relinquished that lead, running away with a 58-36 1A championship-game victory.
Challis head coach Justin Farr addressed the Cinderella storyline.
“That Cinderella story — Everybody’s touting us as Cinderella, like ‘You shouldn’t be there. You shouldn’t be there.’ We knew we should be here,” he said.
Outside of the small eastern Idaho town, few believed the program that had not been to the state tourney in six years would send a team to the event. But getting to state, and winning at state, has been the team’s goal all season, according to senior Jacen Farr.
“Our goal this year was to make it to the state tournament,” he said. “And our goal at the state tournament was to win two games. We won two games, and made it to the ‘chip, we just didn’t come out with the blue trophy.”
Jacen came into the tournament as Challis’ leader in points, rebounds and assists per game. He was key in the Vikings’ first-round upset of three-seed Watersprings. And despite having an off-game offensively, the forward used his defense to impact Challis’ semifinal victory over Rockland.
His uncle and coach, Justin, said after the semifinal win that a big game was expected in Saturday’s final.
But mere minutes into the finals, Jacen went down, clutching at his heavily braced right knee. He would return to the court, but was visibly laboring the rest of the afternoon.
He said after the game that he stepped on a foot while going for a rebound and dislocated the knee. That has been an issue for him since he suffered an MCL and meniscus injury during his freshman football season.
After returning to the locker room to test stability, it was an easy decision to get back out on the court.
“It wasn’t enough pain to keep me out, so I came back,” he said. “It was definitely in the back of my mind — the pain — the whole game, but I knew I couldn’t let my team down.”
When he suffers this re-aggravation, Justin said, Jacen is often sidelined for two weeks.
“I couldn’t believe we got him back in two minutes,” the coach continued.
Leaving the court and his teammates, Jacen said, was frustrating.
Fellow senior Brayden Ollar, who led Challis with 12 points, said it was more than that, as Challis “lost traction” with its leader off the floor.
“(Dietrich) got on a roll, they made a lot of shots and we couldn’t stop them,” Ollar said.
A hobbled Jacen was no match for Dietrich’s Torgerson, who came into Saturday’s game averaging 11.5 points and 16 rebounds per game in the tournament.
The Blue Devil big man had himself another monster performance in the championship game, posting 15 points, 15 rebounds and one block.
Asked what made Torgerson so tough to stop, Justin said, “He’s strong.” The Challis coach went on to say that Torgerson is not just strong but physical and quick
Torgerson, who was constantly encouraging the Dietrich fans to make more noise throughout the game, shared a brief moment with his younger brother, freshman Kooper Torgerson, when he finally left the court in the game’s closing minutes.
“Man, I love my brother,” Brody said after the game. “I asked (head coach) Slade Dill, like, ‘Hey, when I get subbed out, make it be Kooper, I want him to come in for me.’ He’s next up. Watch out for that kid, he’s going to be a baller.”
Through three quarters of a game in which they just could not find the bottom of the net, only two Vikings had scored — Ollar and junior Teage Erickson, who finished with 11. Jacen finally did get enough space to score in the fourth quarter, posting 11 points on 13 shots.
“It’s a bigger stage than any of us have ever been at. It maybe shocked us a little bit,” Jacen said about his team’s offensive struggles.
Challis did not have a quarter in which they scored double-figures until the fourth, when they put up 17.
Asked if the fourth-quarter emergence was the product of him telling his team to just have some fun and enjoy playing on the large stage, Justin said it was not.
“We’re too competitive for that,” he said, adding that he told his team with two minutes left in the fourth, to keep fighting. “We’re going to finish this the hardest we can, best we can. We’ve got all these fans, drove all this way from Challis, we didn’t want to just be finishing up mediocre.”
Despite the loss Saturday, the Vikings will be returning to Challis with the program’s second-ever state trophy. That, Jacen, Justin and Ollar, agreed, is a huge step forward for the school and town.
Justin said that he wants to build the Challis boys basketball team into one that is expected to be at state, not one viewed as a princess with a lost slipper when they get there.
“We’re trying to rebuild our program.”