Portales junior Marcus Slocum goes hard to the basket in the second quarter of the Rams' Friday night game against Lovington

Near the end of Friday night’s Portales district game against Lovington, Ram fans began to chant, “Just ... like ... foot ... ball ...”.

The final score wasn’t identical to Portales’ state football championship win over the Wildcats in December, but the result was similar — a Portales 72-54 blowout to stay undefeated in District 4-3A.

Portales owned a solid double-digit lead for most of the contest, leading 36-18 at the half, but Lovington closed to gap to 45-36 by the end of the third quarter.

But senior Billy Good scored 10 of his 14 points in the second half to help Portales pull away in the fourth period and climb to 6-0 in district play.

The Rams are a district win from clinching the top seed in the upcoming District 4-3A tournament.

“They never really allowed that run to happen,” Ram coach Mark Gallegos said. “Every time they kind of got to that point we toughened up a little bit. I told the guys when we have somebody down, we have to put them away.”

Portales jumped out to an 18-8 first-quarter advantage.

“I was real proud of the way our kids started,” Gallegos said. “We talked about how we need to get up early and extend our lead because in a game like this and a rivalry like this — crazy things can happen.”

Senior Nick Bliss led the Ram charge with 16 points and junior Marcus Slocum added 11 points.

Sophomore guard Robert Perez led four Wildcats in double figures with 11 points.

“We were ready,” Slocum said. “This was a real good result for our confidence.”

The Rams take a break from district action when they travel to Texico on Tuesday.