Owyhee focused on ultimate goal: 'We think we can win the whole thing'

Liam Campbell had 12 points and 8 rebounds to lead Owyhee to a 'business-like' 56-45 win over Mountain View in the 5A quarterfinals

The celebration was muted considering the circumstance.

The first-year school had just made history by becoming the first Owyhee athletics program to win a state tournament game. But the answer was rather simple.

“We think we can win the whole thing if I’m being honest,” said sophomore Liam Campbell who had 12 points and eight rebounds to lead Owyhee to a 56-45 win over Mountain View in the 5A quarterfinals on Thursday. 

“It’s business-like and we just got to finish it off.”

It probably also had to do with the fact that Owyhee didn’t play its greatest game. This was a Maverick (15-10) team that it had blown out twice in the regular season. But the Storm let them stick around by committing 15 turnovers and shooting 55.2% from the free throw line. They also made just one field goal in the fourth quarter.

It resulted in No. 7 Mountain View, which at one point trailed by 17 just seconds into the third quarter, making things interesting with 1 minute and 39 seconds to go. A 10-2 run by the Mavericks brought them to within five points at 50-45 following a free throw by senior Blake Logson. And it appeared like they were going to cut the deficit even more after Colorado State commit and senior Jack Payne missed a pair of free throws with 1:08 remaining. But then junior Barrett Fernandez came rushing in to secure the rebound before a jump ball could be called with a timeout from head coach Andy Harrington.

“We take a lot of pride in free throw rebounding. The first thing we practiced this year was free throw rebounding,” Harrington said. “It’s a huge piece of the game that a lot of people I don’t think take seriously.”

Payne didn’t miss a second time. He buried both of his next free throws to put it back to a three-possession game. Owyhee as a whole made six consecutive free throws to put the Mavericks away for good and avoid what had been a trend before. The first three Class 5A games all saw the higher seed lose, including No. 1 Lake City, which appeared to be on a collision course with Owyhee.

“Don’t be the team that gets upset,” said Payne who played for Boise High last season and is one of only two seniors this year. “I couldn’t imagine, especially being my senior year. It would not be amazing.

“We were at that Lake City game and when we saw Lake City get upset, we were all looking at each other like, ‘Damn.’ They didn’t know that anything could happen. But I knew that because of last year.”

Freshman Jackson Rasmussen also totaled 12 points, while Payne racked up 11 points for the Storm, who will play another familiar opponent in Meridian. Owyhee beat the Warriors 60-28 on Jan. 14 before eking out a 57-54 win in last week’s district semifinals.

Junior Nate Ojukwu picked up a double-double with a game-high 20 points and 10 rebounds for the Mavericks.