Lady Rams cruise past Lovington

PORTALES - Lovington's girls did some damage in the first and fourth quarters Friday night - in fact, the Lady Wildcats played Portales High even during that stretch.

Not to worry, though. PHS ran roughshod over the Lady Wildcats in the middle two periods - the Lady Rams blanked them during that time - en route to a 62-28 District 4-4A victory at the Ram Athletic Center.

Portales (15-5, 3-0 district) remains firmly in control of the district race at the halfway point. The Lady Rams could essentially clinch it with a win in their next outing this Friday night against Roswell Goddard (12-8, 2-1) at the RAC.

The Lady Wildcats (5-17, 0-3) played pretty competitively in the opening stanza, and pulled to 19-12 when junior guard Ty'enna Thompson knocked down a 3-pointer just before the buzzer.

However, it would be a long time - nearly 17 minutes of game time, to be precise - before they scored again. When sophomore Myra Castro tallied with 7:06 left in the game, it ended a 37-0 run and made it 56-14.

PHS set out to make the overmatched Lady Wildcats play at a much faster paced than they wanted - both on offense and defense.

Mission accomplished.

"We were a little frantic at the beginning of the game," said senior guard Teagan Faust, who finished with 10 points, six rebounds, nine assists and four steals. "The second quarter we kind of settled down and started playing together."

Even with senior guard Riley Shillings sidelined with a partially torn ACL, the Lady Rams had too many weapons. Faust (8), senior post Kylyie Paden (20, including 16 in the second frame) and senior guard Taris Rippee (12) combined for all but three of the team's 43 first-half points.

PHS had a 24-0 scoring edge in the second canto despite shooting just 1-for-8 from the free throw line.

"We wanted to push the tempo, but in the first quarter we were trying to push things that weren't there," PHS girls coach Wade Fraze said.

Paden finished with 23 points and five steals, while Rippee had 13 points and four swipes.

"I thought Kylyie had a strong game, probably one of her better games of the year," Fraze said.

Thompson had all three of Lovington's 3-pointers and finished with 11 points, but the Lady Wildcats were forced into 34 turnovers.

"We really wanted to push the ball this game," Faust said, "and I think we did a good job of that."

Fraze went eight deep until about five minutes left in the game, and when he emptied his bench the Lady Wildcats were able to go on a game-ending 14-6 run.