Lady Rams advance to tourney semifinals

LITTLEFIELD — Forgive the Portales High girls if they weren’t totally ready at the beginning of Tuesday’s quarterfinal matchup against Springlake-Earth in Littlefield’s Wildcat Classic.

After all, the game did start at 8:30 a.m. — New Mexico time.

It took the Lady Rams a while to get untracked, but they finally started to pull away late and beat the Class 1A Lady Wolverines 58-42.

Senior guard Taris Rippee scored 20 points while senior post Kylyie Paden finished with 18 points, eight rebounds and four steals for Portales (7-3), which was slated to face New Home (16-4), a 54-42 winner over Dumas on Monday, in Tuesday’s semifinal round.

“We started off so passive, so slow,” Lady Rams coach Wade Fraze said. “We were still on Christmas break for over half the game.”

Nursing a one-point advantage at halftime, PHS exchanged the lead three times in the early moments of the third quarter before Rippee’s basket put them in front for good just over two minutes into the stanza. Another basket by Rippee against Lady Wolverines pressure stretched the margin to nine with just over a minute left in the frame.

It was still nine early in the fourth quarter when the Lady Rams put together a 13-2 surge over a 3 1/2-minute stretch for a 20-point cushion with two minutes remaining. Paden, who struggled at times around the basket, put in seven points during the run.

“I think we were still asleep at the beginning (of the game),” Rippee said. “I feel like it took us until the fourth quarter to get totally going.”

Springlake-Earth (10-6) may have worn down a bit late.

“They’ve got some decent kids,” Fraze said. “But we just shouldn’t have started off that way.”

Senior guard Riley Shillings added five assists and four steals for Portales.

Sayler Beerwinkle, a 5-foot-9 senior post, topped Springlake-Earth with 19 points, including all nine of her team’s first-quarter tallies, while junior forward Halee Toscano finished with 12.

Final-round games are scheduled for today, with the third-place matchup at 2:30 p.m. and the championship at 5:30 p.m. (MST).