TUCUMCARI — The Portales Rams held off a late rally by Tucumcari, beating the Rattlers 55-49 Tuesday for their third straight win.

Stephen Shields lead the Rams (12-5) with 16 points, Jesse Blue added 12 points and Clay Bonner finished with 10.

Michael Marroquin lead Tucumcari (8-6) with 16 points. Jantzen Darnell scored 14 and Jakus Martinez added 11 points for the Rattlers, who dropped their second straight game.

“I give a lot of credit to Tucumcari because they played really well,” Portales coach Mark Gallegos said. “We just couldn’t close them out. We played good for three quarters, but we let them hang around and in the fourth we couldn’t defend them to keep them out of the lane.”

Gallegos said the Rams, who were up 26-15 at halftime, led by 12 points with two minutes to go.

“We missed some free throws and they came down and hit some threes,” Gallegos said. “The game was never in jeopardy. We just couldn’t close it out.”

Meanwhile, the Lady Rams beat Tucumcari 39-11 as junior Macy Mitchell scored 14 points.

Esperanza Moncayo lead the Lady Rattlers (5-7) with four points. Tucumcari lost their third straight game.

Portales led 17-4 at halftime.

Gabby Garcia, Jenna Sievers and Hannah Cissell added six points each for the Lady Rams (12-6), who have won eight of their last 10 games.

“It has been a little over a week since we played we were out of sync,” Portales coach Clay Stout said. “I thought our defense played good and we were able to hit several three-pointers, but we weren’t smooth on offense.”