Treys help Rams bury Santa Rosa

PORTALES - The Rams used 12 3-pointers and a 17-2 second quarter run to breeze past Santa Rosa, 85-48, in Saturday's boys basketball showdown.

Portales made 50% of its 3-point opportunities, while limiting the Lions' impact down low.

"What we're doing in practice is really carrying over to our games now. I think the kids are seeing that and they're realizing how important practice is," Rams head coach Rickie McBroom said. "I'll be honest, we shoot tons of shots in practice - so, they should be going in. But, we're also creating really good shots - the kind that we want to shoot."

With Santa Rosa (1-1) leading 19-18 early in the second quarter, Portales (2-2) looked to regain control of the ballgame. After a Braden Bridges free throw to tie the game, Tyrese Dawson drained a triple to put Portales back ahead.

That, in fact, was the final time the Rams trailed all game.

Dawson then found Rico Diaz on a fastbreak, which Diaz layed in, despite being fouled from behind. Once Diaz completed the and-1 opportunity, he went back to the line and sunk two more free throws, which were followed by a Bridges trey.

Diaz then made a 3-pointer of his own to extend the lead to 35-21. Bridges ended the half with a tip-in off a teammate's miss, giving the Rams a 37-25 lead heading into the break. Portales had finished the second quarter on a 19-6 run.

"It just came down to execution," McBroom said of that second-quarter turnaround. "We sometimes get the ball too deep into traffic. We talked to our kids about making the play before we got into traffic, and that would allow us to get the ball to the open man.

"On defense, I think we just kind of settled down. We started rebounding the ball a little better in the second quarter. Then we got some run-outs. Our kids are doing a really good job when we get the ball and run in their lanes to the other end and putting a lot of pressure on the other team to get back."

Unfortunately for the Lions, a chance to get back into the game in the third quarter never happened. Santa Rosa briefly cut the deficit to nine on a couple of occasions, but then the 3-point barrage started again.

Dawson and Jaycob Medlin each hit multiple treys in the third period, including a corner 3 from Medlin, whose shot banked off the glass to extend the Ram advantage to 13 points.

Portales wound up 12-for-24 from downtown, and 28-for-47 (59 percent) from the field, overall. Dawson led the way with 19 points, with Diaz adding 18, and Bridges contributing 15 points.

Not surprisingly, Dawson attributes McBroom's practice philosophies to the Rams' recent shooting success the past two games. "We just shot the ball like we've been doing, and we've been practicing that all week," Dawson said. "We had like one or two practices after football, and then we had games right after that and we just weren't in shape."

In the first quarter, Portales quickly built a 10-5 lead, but a 6-2 Lions run cut the deficit to within a point. Santa Rosa went on to tie it up at 15-all after one quarter, before taking a 19-18 lead on a Shawn Agar putback. In the end, however, Portales' red-hot shooting performance and defensive adjustments were just too much for the Lions to overcome.

The Rams will now look ahead to Tuesday night, when they'll host Goddard, in hopes of a third-straight victory. For McBroom, it will be another tough matchup of the opposition's size inside versus the Rams' supreme athleticism and shooting prowess. Luckily for Portales, Saturday's game was an excellent warm-up for that very challenge.

"They're big," McBroom said of Goddard, laughing. "We're real concerned about that. We had an adjustment we were going to make tonight, if we needed it with (the Lions') big kid (Cody Schattschneider).

"But, we didn't need it so we'll actually get to work on it Monday. We're going to attack (Goddard) the same way (as Santa Rosa). If we can keep them off the glass - and we've been doing a good job of that for two games (we'll be fine). But the whole key for them is their bigs. (Dalin Stanford) is really good and we can't let him take over the game."