Ram boys battle to 1-2 mark in Clovis round-robin

CLOVIS — The Portales Rams tennis team captured one close dual and nearly pulled out another in Tuesday’s Clovis quadrangular.

The Rams edged District 4-3A rival Lovington 5-4, but dropped a 5-4 decision to the host Wildcats. In their first outing of the day, the Rams lost to Roswell Goddard 9-0.

Meantime, the PHS girls were blanked by Goddard 9-0, then lost to Lovington 7-2 and Clovis 8-1.

The Portales boys won the No. 3 through No. 6 singles matches against Lovington, then got a win at No. 3 doubles from Brandon Carter and Jesse Hooper, who rallied for a 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 win over the Wildcats’ Mario Aragon and Cal Kerby.

Against Clovis, Kacy Vigil, Raymike Montoya and Harper won in singles, but the Wildcats won two of the three doubles matches to squeak out the team win.

The Lady Rams Megan Combs managed to get Goddard’s Suzann Naylor to a 10-point tiebreaker after splitting sets, but Naylor rolled to a 10-3 win to take the match. Goddard won all of the other matches in straight sets.

PHS winners against Lovington were Sabrina Montoya at No. 6 singles and Stefania Gutierrez and Montoya at No. 3 doubles, and Gutierrez and Montoya in doubles against Clovis.