Portales junior Shawn Carrasco goes hard to the basket in the fourth quarter of the Rams’ regular season district finale Saturday night against Ruidoso.

The Portales Rams set out to hold Ruidoso to 40 points Saturday night. They did that.

The Portales Rams set out to go undefeated through the District 4-3A regular season. They also did that after a 57-40 district finale home win against Ruidoso Saturday night.

“All season long we’ve been talking about district,” Portales senior Will Archibeque said. “It’s been a goal since the start of the season, but we want bigger and better things.”

The game was a make-up after Ruidoso was snowed in several weeks ago.

“It was a good night,” Portales coach Mark Gallegos said, “because we bounced back from not playing real well last night. We’ve got 12 guys on the team who push each other. We want to give all of those 12 guys an opportunity to play. It was a good way to finish the district season to go 8-0.”

Portales jumped on top early, taking a 17-12 lead after the first quarter.

“We played pretty good. We started off slow again,” Portales junior Marcus Slocum said.

The lead grew as the Rams doubled up the Warriors in the second quarter 14-7 to grab a 31-19 halftime advantage.

The Warriors began to creep closer in the second half, but the Rams escaped with a 17-point victory.

Senior Nick Bliss led the Rams with 17 points, followed by Slocum’s 14 points.

“We can beat anybody if we hold them to 40 points,” Slocum said.

Portales has already clinched a spot in the first round of the New Mexico Class 3A state basketball tournament.

The Rams have a week off before they host the District 4-3A championship game Saturday night at 7 p.m.

“I told the kids that Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are going to be tough. We’re going to see what we’re made of because we’re going to get better next week,” Gallegos said. “We have to get better defensively with both man and zone. We’ve got to get better zone-wise. We’re not playing a lot of zone (coverage) but at this time of year — you have to.”

The Rams will face Dexter, Ruidoso or Lovington in the district title game.

“We’re pretty excited,” Slocum said. “We just have to wait and see who we’ll play.”

Portales JV wins tourney
The Portales Ram junior varsity won its second consecutive district tournament with a pair of wins on Saturday.

The second-seeded Rams (17-5) beat top-seeded Lovington in the tournament championship game 35-34.

Garret Hancock led the Ram junior varsity with 12 points.

Earlier in the day, the Ram junior varsity defeated the New Mexico Military Institute 55-41 in the tournament semifinals. Dennis Short led Portales with 12 points, followed by Clay Bonner’s nine points.

“Everybody on the team contributed to this championship at one time or another,” Portales junior varsity head coach Rickie McBroom said. “They all had their moments to help us win this and that’s what I’m the proudest of.”