Rams top Capital, improve to 5-1

SANTA FE — Go big or go home.

The Portales Rams chose the former Friday night.

Big plays were abundant for visiting Portales in its nondistrict football game against Capital, scoring all five of its touchdowns on plays of 29 yards or more in fashioning a 35-26 win at Jaguar Field. In all, the Rams (5-1) had six plays of 30 yards or more, and four of them led to touchdowns.

Perhaps no play had more of a lingering impact than Kellan Hightower’s 91-yard kickoff return in which no Jaguar touched him to open the third quarter. In the span of 13 seconds, Portales had a 26-18 lead and started a third quarter in which it scored two touchdowns and a safety to build a 35-18 lead that the run-oriented Jaguars could not overcome.

“I knew we needed a big play, and that was the first play right out of gate,” Hightower said. “So what better time?”

Hightower had impeccable timing, as he had another big play touchdown late in the first half that broke a 12-all tie. He chased down backup quarterback Hagen Rains’ deep pass for a 34-yard touchdown as Capital D’andre Martinez inexplicably slowed down and the ball get past him — and Hightower in the process.

“We were hurting ourselves more than anything,” Jaguars head coach Bill Moon said. “They had some big plays, but was it because they got them or we gave them to them?”

Rains eased the pain of losing starting quarterback Baylor Diaz, who left the game in the first quarter with a high ankle sprain, by connecting on six of 15 passes for 164 yards and two touchdowns. Capital, though, kept giving gifts in the third. Its special teams gave up a kickoff return touchdown, then there was a bad snap to punter Edwin Saenz in the end zone that Saenz recovered for a safety that made it 28-18. On the ensuing Portales drive, the lead grew to 17 points when Rains hit Romeo Gbassagee with a screen pass that he took down the left sideline for a 44-yard touchdown with 6:04 left in the third.

“We lost our starting quarterback, we lost our starting running back [Gbassagee] for a few minutes,” Portales head coach Jaime Ramirez said. “Honestly, our boys stepped up and played together. It was nice to see that. It was one of those situations where our team stepped up played like a varsity should.”

If not for the big plays, the storyline would have centered on the Jaguars’ junior running back Luke Padilla’s 47-carry, 210-yard performance and the return of junior Manuel Vargas at quarterback. Padilla scored a pair of touchdowns in the first half that helped Capital (3-3) rally from a 12-0 deficit early in the game. Meanwhile, Vargas was 4 of 8 for 86 yards and a touchdown in his first real action of the season.

Vargas, though, felt right at home since he was the starter last season.

“I knew what I was doing. It wasn’t my first time,” Vargas said. “I took it with ease. It wasn’t very difficult. I knew the system, so I just ran the system.”

It appeared as if Portales was going to put a hurt on the Jaguars, as it scored on its first two drives to build a 12-0 lead. That iteration of the Rams, though, had starting quarterback Baylor Diaz. He had a 30-yard touchdown pass to Dason Davis on the opening drive, and the second drive saw Gbassagee blast over the right side for a 29-yard touchdown run for a two score lead with just 6:59 to go in the first quarter.

On the ensuing drive, however, Diaz rolled his ankle and crawled off the field. Then, Rains injured his ankle, leaving them with Hightower as the quarterback for a couple of series.

The injuries were enough to help Capital get back into the game. Actually, it was Padilla who got the Jaguars back into the game. His 44-yard touchdown run with 1:59 left in the opening quarter cut the margin to 12-6. During a 5-minute, 22-second drive in the second quarter, Padilla rolled up 41 of Capital’s 55 yards, and he capped it with a 10-yard touchdown rumble over the right side of the line that tied it at 12-all with 2:37 left.

The game suddenly turned into a track meet, as the Rams scored on Hightower’s touchdown catch for a 20-12 lead with 32.2 seconds left. Capital responded with a 45-yard kickoff return by Jasper Mares that put the ball at the Portales 40-yard line, and two plays later, Manuel Vargas hit Daniel Ray Roybal for a 41-yard touchdown pass to cut the margin to 20-18 just before the half. But in a game of big plays, the Rams were better at it.

Capital, though, has two weeks to correct those mistakes before the biggest part of the season begins — District 2-5A play. The Jaguars start with defending district champion Albuquerque Del Norte on Oct. 19 in Albuquerque.

“Right now, it’s not about breaks,” Moon said. “It’s about execution.”