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Prep football: Portales tops Warriors, 24-15

PORTALES — A Tyrese Dawson fourth-quarter interception, coupled with a late Julian Tellez field goal, sealed the deal for the Portales Rams in their 24-15 District 4-4A football victory over Ruidoso Friday night.

Leading 21-15 with just over seven minutes remaining, the Rams faced a third and 8 from their own 19-yard line, when backup quarterback Julian Urioste took a jet sweep and raced past the first down marker, but fumbled towards the end of the play. Ruidoso recovered the ball at the Portales 29.

Three plays later, Warriors quarterback Brennam Stewart dropped back to pass, scrambled around to buy time, and threw across the middle into coverage. A Ram defender tipped the ball in the air, allowing Dawson to make a spectacular one-handed interception, in which he proceeded to return 55 yards the other way.

Now in Warrior territory, Portales moved the ball 18 yards in five plays, before lining up for a 32-yard field goal attempt. Tellez had a 37-yarder blocked earlier in the game, but this time around, he drilled it with 2:09 remaining — effectively putting the game away.

"We just tried to keep everything in front of us. We wanted to get a lot of hands in the passing lane," Rams defensive coordinator Victor Lopez said of the interception. "It was a game-changer for us; (Ruidoso) had all the momentum, the entire second half to that point.

"That kind of set us up to kick the field goal. Just great effort by our kids; they work hard, they've improved every week and they made the play when they had to. That's just a credit to how hard they've been working."

In the early going, the typically run-heavy Ram offense came out aggressive with their passing attack. Dawson found check downs left and right, as the first three offensive plays from scrimmage were all completed to move the ball near mid-field.

Dawson proceeded to rush for 46 yards on four of the final five plays of the drive, capping it off with a 6-yard score. However, the early momentum for Portales (7-1, 2-0) would be short-lived, as a 59-yard punt at the end of Ruidoso's first drive backed the Rams up to their own 1-yard line.

On the next play, Dawson tried to avoid a sack in the end zone by getting rid of the football, but was ultimately called for an intentional grounding. Trailing 7-2, Ruidoso put together an eight play, 51-yard drive that resulted in a Stewart to Isaiah Otero 39-yard touchdown pass, giving the Warriors a 9-7 lead.

However, touchdown runs of 29 and 25 yards by Dawson gave the Rams a 21-9 lead before half, as Dawson rushed for 136 of his 160 yards before halftime. Ruidoso went on to cut the lead down to 21-15 with under five minutes left in the third quarter, but mistakes set the Warriors back from there.

Not only did Ruidoso (6-3, 2-1) not capitalize on the fumble recovery in the fourth quarter — along with the subsequent interception — but also, the Warriors could not stay out of their own way. Ruidoso committed 12 penalties for 123 yards on the night.

"Aww man, that interception," Warriors coach Kief Johnson said. "But, you know what? That's why you play the game. Those things hurt, but that's why you play it. That play doesn't make or break the game, it doesn't lose the ballgame. We had our opportunities — the things that hurt us tonight our ourselves. Penalties killed us — oh my gosh, too many penalties against us. We gotta eliminate that right there."

Johnson's club has one regular season game left, following a bye week. However, Johnson is optimistic about his team's chances, should they advance to the postseason, as he went on to say that the 2017 4A season has been a wide-open affair, where anybody can beat anyone on any given night.

As for Portales coach Jaime Ramirez, the win left him feeling ecstatic after the game. For him, the Rams' own missed opportunities — such as 85 penalty yards, missed assignments and the fumble in the fourth quarter, are things that his team must improve going forward.

However, he was nonetheless thrilled with Friday's outcome. "Yeah, it was one of those things where I thought we played a pretty decent first-half. And then, we came out second-half and we had a lot of mistakes on offense, which killed drives. Holdings, missed assignments, and then a couple dropped passes that I thought, if we get those (we could have put the game away)," Ramirez said.

"We're gonna clean that stuff up, but that fumble isn't really characteristic of our team. Hats off to our boys, they played hard, we just got to clean some things up — all the way around, and play better next week."