The Bend Blues defeated Camas 24-12 Saturday afternoon to win the Rugby Oregon state championship.
The two teams went through the entire season pretty much deadlocked. They tied in March and their overall record and points difference were virtually identical.
"Bend was the better team today," said Camas Head Coach Rich McLeod, who lamented his team's frequency in losing balls in contact.
They made other mistakes, too, missing touch on penalties four times.
The game was hotly-contested, back-and-forth in the first half and under the pressure of the moment, neither team could find the tryline. Midway through the first half Bend had a promising movement fall apart thanks to a wild pass into touch, but they stole the lineout, attacked smartly, and the backs got the Blues within five meters.
But Camas hung on, wrapping up the ballcarriers and forcing a speculative offload that ended in a knock-on. From the ensuing scrum Camas got a penalty, but were unable to make touch. Bend. countered, sent it wide to the other side, and center Gabe Pinkerton scored on a cutback.
With halftime approaching, Bend got a penalty for a ruck infraction, kicked to the corner, got a scrum, and scored on a simple but well-executed eightman pick from back-rower Jettson Gillam. As he should being the coach's son, Gillam showed power and good technique, staying low the whole run and making himself virtually impossible to tackle.
Up 12-0, Bend took control right off the restart. Camas tried to snag a short kick but lost it forward, and from the scrum Bend went wide. A kick downfield was answered with a low kick that went right into Bend hands, and the Blues spun it left to put wing Brayden MacRostie in at the corner.
That was the dagger blow, as now Camas trailed by three scores.
In the second half, Bend went to the boot in order to exert field position pressure on Camas. It worked. While Bend didn't get any points out of it, Camas took about 10 minutes to get out of their half.
When they did, however, they torched Bend for a 98-meter breakaway from EIRA standout Caden Reinebach. It was a brilliant individual effort and put Camas back in the game at 17-7.
But Bend did well to spend the next 15 minutes or so in the Camas zone, and finally flanker Miles Shuller, who was a menace all day, muscled it over for a try with 10 minutes left.
