Rams set for Socorro

PORTALES — The Portales Rams will face an interesting challenge when they come back home to face the Socorro Warriors on Friday night.

The Rams have not faced the Warriors since 2007, when Portales knocked off Socorro in the first round of the 3A playoffs.

A lot has changed since then, as the Rams (4-1) have won two state titles and moved to 4A along the way. Most teams on Portales’ schedule are known commodities from previous years, which makes the Rams’ lack of familiarity with the Warriors a potentially daunting task.

“Any time you play a team that you haven’t played before, there’s going to be some new, different things that they do, that you’re maybe not aware of,” Rams coach Jaime Ramirez explained. “But, that’s why you watch film, and things like that. I’m sure that they’re going to come with their nuances and stuff like that. We feel like we’ve prepared all week long.”

The Rams are fresh off of a 27-0 road victory over Dexter, as they got revenge on the only team to beat them during their state championship run of 2016. As for Socorro (2-3), a rough start to the season has since seen the Warriors begin to heat up.

Socorro opened with three-straight losses, as it was shut out Week 1 by Ruidoso, 41-0, before losing tight games to Tularosa (14-13) and Raton (35-28). However, ever since that point, the Warriors are outscoring opponents 96-0, following wins over Laguna Acoma (49-0) and Navajo Prep (47-0).

“They’re a team that’s on the rise; they keep improving each and every game,” Ramirez said. Every game (since Ruidoso) they seem to be in every ballgame, and they’re improving and they’ve won their last two ballgames.

“We’re expecting a pretty solid team to come out here on Friday night. We know they’re hungry, and they’re coming with a new and improved team.”

Ramirez says that defensively, Socorro runs a 3-4 defense and likes to rush five or six guys. That Warrior defense will have to stop a Rams running game that already has almost 1,300 yards on the season, led by quarterback Tyrese Dawson’s 718 yards and 15 scores.

Offensively, Socorro is multi-formational, as it features lots of play-action passing. As for Ramirez and company, last week’s win over Dexter closed the book on a few things.

First off, they got revenge on the Demons and ruined Dexter’s homecoming game in the process. Secondly, the Rams played arguably their first complete game of the season, after some slow first-half starts the previous four weeks. Finally, Dawson appears to be back to full health.

“You seen him on Friday night, he didn’t look like he was hurt to me,” Ramirez said of Dawson with a laugh. “He’s good to go (now). (What impressed me most about our win over Dexter was) our defensive play, for sure.”