Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Clovis' Joe Gallegos works to keep the Cleveland receiver from reaching the end zone during a pool play game.
Portales' Tyrese Dawson turns the corner after making a catch at the Eastern New Mexico University 7-on-7 tournament Friday at Greyhound Stadium.
PORTALES — There's still plenty of time left before two-a-day practices start for prep football, and even more time before the regular season kicks off.
Good news for the Clovis Wildcats and Portales Rams, because both coaches say there's plenty to shore up this offseason.
The teams got a day's worth of competition Friday at Greyhound Stadium, host of the Eastern New Mexico University 7-on-7 Tournament.
Both Clovis and Portales were knocked out in the opening round of the eight-team championship bracket, with Roswell ousting Portales and Cleveland edging Clovis.
"We competed," Portales coach Jaime Ramirez said after the loss to the Coyotes. "You could tell we wore out a little as the day progressed. We broke down and missed some coverages, and offensively we dropped a lot of balls.
"We've got to get in better shape, and that's on us."
Ramirez said the fatigue became evident against the larger schools, since those squads were platooning and the Ram players were playing on both offense and defense.
Meanwhile, Clovis went 3-3 on the day, beating Cleveland in the final pool play game before falling in the tournament rematch.
"The first three games, the effort was terrible," Clovis coach Cal Fullerton said. "I thought after that we were good. The last few games, I thought we played really hard and competed well.
"I said this was us the last three seasons; we'd fall behind early and then have to pick ourselves up. Somehow, we're going to have to pick ourselves up to start games."
Clovis finished sixth in the big man challenge, which ended in the early afternoon with 3-on-3 tug-of-war.
