The Portales Lady Rams hosted Artesia Lady Bulldogs for the first round of the NMAA State Tournament. Going into the game, the Lady Rams had already defeated Artesia earlier this season, but the matchup was fairly even between the two teams.
At the half, Artesia was dominating the game. The score was 22-14, in the Lady Bulldogs’ favor going into the locker room. Then in the 3rd, neither team made much of a showing, with less than 10 points added to either teams’ score.
The 4th period brought a giant rally from behind for the Lady Rams, who outscored Artesia by more than triple. The Lady Rams hit 3-point after 3-point shot, to add 22 points to their trailing score. Not only did they score more points in the 4th than they had the entire game, but the Lady Rams also held Artesia to just 6 points in the 4th period. Leaving Artesia with an unexpected loss after their dominating first half.
The final score of the first round game was 42-36, moving Coach Fraze and his Lady Rams to 16-11 this season, and onto round 2 of the 4A State Bracket.
Portales Girls are ranked seed 8 in the bracket, and face Kirtland Central (Seed 1) on March 12 at 6:30pm at Dreamstyle Arena in Albuquerque.
