Portales senior guard Andrew Villanueva, right, dribbles by Artesia's senior Koby Caton, left, who tries to avoid being called for a foul during a game at Portales High School on Tuesday.

Portales senior Stephen Shields, right, shoots a jumper as Artesia's defender goes under the net. Portales dropped their second straight game in five days 70-63 to Artesia.

Artesia turned the tables on Portales in the second half, using pressure defense to rally to a 70-63 win Tuesday in a non-district game at PHS.

Senior forward Koby Caton scored 16 of his 21 points in the second half as Artesia (6-4) rallied from a 34-22 halftime deficit.

Senior Kiesto Ontiveros scored 15 points and senior Stephen Shields add 14 for the Rams (5-3), who lost for the second time in five days.

Artesia coach Isidro Montoya said the Class 4A Bulldogs wanted to pressure Portales early and get into a solid groove, but that didn’t work.

“Portales came out and blocked us and created turnovers,” Montoya said. “When we went into halftime we decided that we were going to come out and pressure more often and that lead to us creating more scoring opportunities.”

Portales coach Mark Gallegos was not pleased with his team’s defensive effort in the second half.

“Seventy points, you can’t give up that many points and expect to win games,” Gallegos said. “We wanted to hold them to 45 points and we had them at halftime with 22. We have 10 seniors on this team and too much experience to let something like that happen.”

Portales host Pojoaque at 7:30 p.m. on Friday in the Portales Shootout.