Clovis outlasts Ram rally

CLOVIS — Basketball rivalries are always cool. Even if teams aren’t in the same district, an area rivalry can be fun, packed with fans.

Tuesday night’s Portales-Clovis boys basketball game was both of the above, with each team taking turns being in control of the flow, and Rock Staubus Gymnasium jammed with fans of both teams watching it all play out.

Clovis held on to win 59-51 in front of all those fans, putting another area rivalry installment in the scorebooks.

“That’ll be one of their best crowds, except for when they play Hobbs. Seriously,” Portales head coach Rickie McBroom said. “It’s always a great atmosphere when Portales plays Clovis. Whether it’s at Portales or Clovis, it’s always one of the great games of the year, I think, for both teams. So we knew (the atmosphere) would be good.”

“That’s the good thing about being just down the road from Portales; they brought some fans,” Clovis head coach Jaden Isler said. “And I’ve got to commend our fans; our fans are starting to come out and fill the bleachers. And our student section’s been great all year, and that’s a shout-out to our football team doing a good job of getting people together and getting them to the student section.”

Who’s in charge?

If any fan of either team only saw the opening minutes of Tuesday’s game, they’d likely think Portales would cruise to victory. If that fan just saw the second and third quarters, he or she would probably think Clovis was going to win by 20 or 30. If that fan saw just the fourth quarter, she or he might be surprised that Portales had won, considering how strong the Rams had been playing in that period.

That’s the kind of night it was at the Rock.

Portales jumped out to early leads of 7-1 and 9-2, and Clovis wasn’t initially capitalizing on its chances to come back. Steals by Anthony Gutierrez and Dwayne Dawson resulted in fruitless Wildcat possessions, as did a defensive rebound by Jaden Phillips, which was followed by two Clovis misses on the other end.

Finally, a Gutierrez steal and layup made it 9-4, and Clovis’ next possession ended with a fast-break layup from Malik Phillips. Portales’ possession after that was abruptly ended by another Gutierrez steal, creating a Wildcat possession that ended with a Gutierrez basket.

That lightning-fast turnaround made it a 9-8 game as the first quarter was ending.

Dawson began the second-quarter scoring with a trey that gave Clovis an 11-9 advantage. The Wildcats’ run became 14-0 after an inside basket from Ro Morgan and another three-pointer from Dawson, putting the Wildcats up 16-9.

A Julian Urioste basket ended Portales’ drought, but a left-side trey by Dominick Urioste made it a 19-11 game. A Julian Urioste foul shot was followed by two Dawson free throws, and a putback by Portales’ Rico Diaz was answered by a right-elbow three from Dawson, handing Clovis a 24-14 lead.

That trey began a 10-0 Clovis run to close the second quarter. The other seven points came from a left-elbow trey by Malik Phillips, a tip-in by Montez Wright, and a Gutierrez layup, allowing Clovis to carry a 31-14 lead into halftime.

The Wildcats made it a 12-0 run early in the third quarter, when a Josiah Lombrana putback gave them a 33-14 advantage.

Portales closed to within 33-20, but an inside turnaround by Bryce Cabeldue and a Malik Phillips trey put Clovis up 38-20. The Wildcats had another 18-point edge (48-30) late in the third quarter, and led 48-32 at quarter’s end.

Consecutive Kenevan Bailey hoops to start the fourth quarter portended a period in which the Rams would make it a little interesting, eventually whittling the difference down to seven once (54-47) and nine three times (54-45, 56-47, 58-49). But the Rams didn’t have quite enough time to come all the way back, and ultimately fell by eight.

Dawson finished with a team-high 13 points, 11 of which came in the Wildcats’ big second quarter when they outscored Portales 23-5. Dawson’s first of three treys in that period gave Clovis the lead for good.

Portales’ Kellan Hightower scored a game-high 15 points, 13 of which came in the second half, nine in the fourth quarter. Diaz (11) and Julian Urioste (10) joined Hightower in double figures.

Mixed bag

Despite his team notching its second straight win, Isler wasn’t all that enthused, considering the Wildcats had led by as many as 19.

“If you can’t finish shots and you can’t make free throws down the stretch, you let teams back in it,” Isler said. “So it was a hard win to feel good about, I’ll say it that way. We talked to the kids after the game about what it feels like to have a good win, the feeling of when you’ve done things the right way and you win the right way. That feeling’s addictive. Great teams have it, they want that feeling over and over.

“So we talked to them after the game because they didn’t feel good about the way we won. I don’t think the fans felt good about the way we won. The coaches for sure didn’t.”

On the flip side, though McBroom wasn’t thrilled that his team had lost its second straight on the road after winning two straight at home, he was encouraged by how hard the Rams had worked to get back into it.

“We also had some very good looks on threes, we just didn’t make them. And sometimes that happens,” McBroom said. “But we got the shots, that’s the important thing, and we’ll just keep working on them.”