Lady Rams get past CHS

PORTALES — A big third quarter run kept the Portales High girls basketball team perfect on the season, with the latest triumph a 38-26 home win over rival Clovis.

After a slow start where both teams were mired in turnovers and sloppy play, the second half immediately had a different feel to it, with Clovis coming out of the locker room to tie the game at 17-17. But an 11-2 run to end the quarter sparked by the Lady Rams' Sky Marianito would put the contest out of reach.

"I thought we got a little momentum going in the second half then there was some call or something was made that sort of took the air out of us again," Clovis coach Jeff Reed said. "But you know, we have to fight through that. I've been telling them all year long you have to fight through adversity, fight through things. But every time that we tried to make a run, Portales countered it and didn't back down."

Clovis' Teya Morris led all scorers with 16 points, while Monay Phillips added eight. Marianito turned in a 15-point performance for the Lady Rams (7-0), getting eight of those in the third, while Taylee Rippee scored 10.

"We just decided we needed pull, spread the ball more, instead of standing and watching," PHS assistant Amanda Bonner, who took over with head coach Wade Fraze sidelined by illness. "The girls did a really great job of working together, getting down the floor and talking to each other."

Both teams were expecting a tough matchup, but it wasn't much solace to Reed that the loss came to a quality opponent.

"Portales is good, fundamentally sound and they play hard, and they get after you especially here in Portales," he said. "They want to beat Clovis bad every time we play. They have nothing to lose.

"They just executed better, made shots a little bit better. And we can't score 26 points and expect to win a basketball game."

Portales scored just 10 in the fourth quarter, but the Clovis offense couldn't take advantage as the Lady Wildcats (4-5) went cold from the outside and struggled to finish around the rim.

Down large in the fourth, Clovis was forced to put a lot of fullcourt pressure on the Lady Rams, which they handled well and kept the ball out of the Lady Cats' hands.

"We expected lots of pressure, on the ball, high-intensity play from them, and they definitely lived up to that," Bonner said. "We work on that pressure stuff in game [situations] everyday and so the girls handled it just like they know how."

The Lady Cats will host Farwell on Tuesday at 5:30 p.m., before taking a week off for the holidays. Meantime, Portales doesn't resume play until Jan. 3, when it hosts Artesia at 7 p.m.