A 1A showdown in the dome features 2 teams on completely different paths

POCATELLO — This week’s District 5 Game of the Week will feature a 1A perennial power and a program playing its second game in six years, in a conference showdown.

The Rockland Bulldogs have won their conference each of the last three seasons and are coming off a loss in the second round of last year’s 1A Football State Championships.

The Sho-Ban Chiefs (0-1, 0-1), on the other hand, had to blow the dust off their uniforms when they played the Challis Vikings on the road last week. Sho-Ban High School has not played a high school football game since October 2019, and hasn’t won one since Sept. 15, 2017.

When the two squads meet at Idaho State University’s ICCU Dome at 1 p.m. Friday, it will be this Rockland squad’s first game.

Rockland’s roster includes just 13 names. Among that short list, though, are the names of returning stars Zack Permann and Isaac Held, along with Xavier Parrish, whom longtime head coach Gerry Hunter believes is the best quarterback he has ever coached.

A new startup, the Chiefs do not have that sort of continuity. What they do have, however, is one of the biggest linemen in the conference, Keylii Tsosie, and one of its most athletically gifted players in Sky Cree Medicine.

Two teams on the opposite ends of the aspiration spectrum, Hunter and the Bulldogs intend to make a run at the banner, while Sho-Ban head coach Lawrence Nai is just trying to teach the game and a love for it.

The Chiefs are coming off a rough trip up north, where they suffered a 52-0 defeat in Challis. And while their goal Friday may not necessarily be to win the game, the program is new enough that there will be some exciting first to watch — like the team’s first points in six years.

This being a conference game, the result of Friday’s matchup will also have some playoff implications.