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Portales pummels Pirates

Rams (8-3) will host Taos in semis.

PORTALES — Portales’ football team is headed back to the final four.

The Rams earned a return visit to the state 4A semifinal round with a 64-32 victory over Grants on Saturday at Greyhound Stadium. By Portales head coach Jaime Ramirez’s own admission, it was a far-from-perfect victory, filled with penalties and turnovers, but the Rams got it done — thanks in part to six interceptions by their defense — and they are moving on to the semis, where they will host Taos in a 1 p.m. Saturday semifinal.

“We’re excited,” Ramirez said. “Just to be able to play another week, we’ll take it. We don’t take it for granted. We’re excited as a football team. This is what we’re working for.”

“We played well enough to get this far. We should do well (in the semifinal round),” said Rams linebacker Baylor Diaz, who had four of the team’s six interceptions.

The Rams hosted Taos in last year's quarterfinals, but first-round and quarterfinal games no longer count in playoff histories when determining host sites for semifinal and title games. The Rams and Tigers have no semifinal or title-game matchups in their playoff history, so homefield is awarded to Portales due to its higher seed.

Portales’ first touchdown came on a 51-yard drive capped by four-yard keeper into the end zone by quarterback Julian Urioste with 7:28 left in the first quarter. Lester Andrade’s extra point made it 7-0.

It took almost five minutes for the Rams to score their second touchdown, with this one coming from the defense, as Jordan Garcia came up with a 15-yard pick-six. Andrade’s second extra point gave Portales a 14-0 advantage.

The ensuing kickoff was touched by the Pirates at their own 1-yard line, and an illegal procedure penalty backed them up to their _-yard line. On the next play, running back Terrell Hocker was tackled by a swarm of Portales defenders — led by Romeo Gbassagee — in the end zone for a safety. With 3:35 still left in the first quarter it was already a 16-0 game.

Portales’ Kellan Hightower returned the ensuing free kick to Grants’ 39-yard line, and it only took the Rams six plays to go that distance, with a 17-yard Gbassagee touchdown run finishing off the series. Andrade went 3-for-3 on PATs, and Portales had a 23-0 lead.

Though Grants made it 23-6 on a five-yard Hocker touchdown run, Portales answered with a nine-play, 59-yard scoring drive, fueled by a 15-yard roughing-the-kicker penalty that turned a fourth-and-six punting situation at the Rams’ own 46 into a first-and-10 from the Grants 40.

Five plays later, Gbassagee took a pitch and rushed one yard for a score. Andrade kicked his fourth extra point, and the Rams were up 30-6 with 7:04 left in the second quarter.

Grants, however, scored the last two touchdowns of the first half, with the second of those scores getting set up by a Portales fumble. At halftime, despite the Rams’ dominance, their lead was a not-so-comfortable 30-19.

Even more concerning, the Pirates received the second-half kickoff, and were then on the move, driving to Portales’ 33. That, however, is when Diaz came up with another pick, this time at the Rams’ 12.

All afternoon long, Diaz was a difference-maker.

“I was just seeing the ball,” he said. “I was just going up, trying to high-point it.”

Though the ensuing Rams possession began inauspiciously, with a four-yard rushing loss by Urioste, it then quickly turned around on consecutive plays — a 27-yard run by Gbassagee and a 28-yard dash by Urioste, setting Portales up at the Grants 37.

Six plays later, Urioste rushed for a six-yard touchdown, and Andrade’s fifth extra point gave the Rams a 37-19 lead.

Grants answered with a snappy five-yard, 65-yard touchdown drive to make it 37-25; Portales answered that with its own 65-yard scoring drive, capped by an 11-yard Urioste touchdown run. And after Andrade’s sixth extra point, the Rams led 44-25.

The game’s remainder proceeded similarly, with Portales keeping the Pirates at arm’s length, Grants trying to hang around, both teams turning the ball over, penalty flags a-flying. The Rams, though, did indeed stay in command, and after a more-than-three-hour contest, they had survived to gain a state semifinal berth.

“We didn’t play our best football today,” Ramirez said. “When you don’t play your best football and you go ahead and put up 64 points, and you give up 32 and still win the ballgame, I’ll take it. We had an ugly win today, but we won.”