Portales junior Marcus Slocum goes hard to the basket in the first quarter of Thursday night’s game against Artesia. The Bulldogs won the game 51-48, but both teams play in this weekend’s Portales Shootout Tournament.

Heading into Thursday night’s game, the top ranked team in Class 4A, the undefeated Artesia Bulldogs had won all but one of their 11 games by double digits.

Make that two, as the Bulldogs just held off the Portales Rams 51-48.

A final Billy Good 3-point shot to tie the game with :04 left was off the mark.

“Portales came out and they were more aggressive than we were,” Artesia head coach Ike Montoya said. “A win is a win; we’ll take it and move on.”

The Bulldog defense held Portales to just two second-quarter points — a stat Ram  head coach Mark Gallegos believed to be the key to the game.

The Rams (4-6) jumped out to a fast 12-8 first quarter lead, but Artesia outscored Portales 8-4 to pull even at 16-16 after the first quarter.

“We started really, really quick offensively,” Gallegos said. “We were clicking pretty good.”

The Ram two-point second quarter led to the Bulldogs taking a 27-18 halftime lead.

The Portales offense came alive in the third quarter, scoring 13 points crawling to within 8 points of Artesia, before a frantic finish that saw almost resulted in the first loss for the Bulldogs (12-0).

“At halftime we talked about what we needed to do,” Gallegos said. “I was real proud of our defense in the second half.”

All 10 of Portales’ free throws came in the fourth quarter, and the Rams took advantage, sinking nine shots —  including Slocum going 6-for-6 from the stripe.

“We were trying any way we could to score,” Slocum said. “We were ready.”

The Ram defense centered around trying to stop Artesia senior Derek Montoya, who led the Bulldogs with 17 points.

“We wanted to play some zone and match up with (Montoya) in the middle,” Gallegos said.

Slocum’s 20 points were followed by senior Nick Bliss’ 15 points. Good added eight and junior Shawn Carrasco five.

“We turned the corner tonight,” Gallegos said. “There’s no such thing as moral victories, but I’m happy with the way we played tonight.”

Artesia and Portales are both taking part in the weekend’s Portales Shootout. The Bulldogs face Socorro this afternoon, while the Rams face Santa Teresa tonight. The Rams play Socorro Saturday night.

Other teams involved in the annual tournament include the Portales and Clovis girls, as well as the Clayton girls and Hot Springs girls.

“We feel pretty good going into this weekend,” Slocum said.

“I can’t ask for much more than that on offense,” Gallegos said. “We executed well.”