Lady Rams advance to tourney finals

ROSWELL — Style points weren't in abundance, but the Portales Lady Rams did enough right to advance to Friday's finals of the Roswell Goddard Holiday Classic.

Freshman Kambrey Blakey scored six of her team-high 13 points in a decisive 12-4 domination of the third quarter and the Lady Rams went on to a 34-27 victory over the host Lady Rockets on Thursday afternoon.

PHS (9-3) takes on Roswell High in today's 3 p.m. championship game.

The Lady Rams erased a 14-11 halftime deficit to take control. Coach Clay Stout said his squad struggled from the free throw line in the final quarter, keeping the Lady Rockets (5-7) in striking distance.

Stout said he didn't say much to his team at halftime.

"I told them, 'There's not a lot I can say,'" Stout recalled. "'We're not putting a lot of energy into it.'

"We seemed to be a little drained from last night's game (a first-round 57-52 win on Wednesday over Los Alamos). We didn't shoot the ball very well."

Portales had to work around some early fouls on senior guard Hannah Cissell and junior post Savannah Vincent, which kept them on the bench for much of the first half.

"We finally got some separation (in the third quarter), but we missed too many free throws in the fourth quarter," Stout said. "We kind of let them hang around."

Junior guard Francis Armijo added 10 points for the Lady Rams. Senior post Abbie Blach was Goddard's lone double-figure scorer, finishing with 13 points.