RIO RANCHO — Portales spotted Del Norte the first five points of their contest on Friday afternoon before roaring back for a 54-31 victory in a consolation semifinal game in eighth annual Mel Otero girls basketball invitational. Bethany Self scored 12 points for the victors while Tara Johnson, who popped in three 3-pointers, added 11. After playing from behind throughout an opening round loss to Las Cruces on Thursday, Portales (2-3) took control against the Knights by scoring 17 straight points in the first half. Del Norte led 7-4 when Dallas Russell canned a trey to tie the game. Consecutive buckets by Self at the end of the opening period followed Russell’s swish and the Lady Rams were on their way to taking control. “I think the kids were really disappointed in the way they played yesterday and I thought they came out with a lot of intensity, a lot of fire,” Portales coach Clay Stout said. “We’ve just got to play the game with enthusiasm and we did.” Scoring 18 of the first 19 points in the second quarter, the Lady Rams’ lead burgeoned to 28-8 with 1:33 left before half. Jenna Wagner scored nine points to help the Portales cause and Jordan Roehl added six more. Del Norte (1-7) was paced by 10 points apiece from Micaela Medina and Nina Ruiz. In the second half, with leads as large as 32 points, Portales was able to work on certain facets of the game — like passing into the post. “The thing that we’ve been harping on is that our spacing has been horrible,” said Stout, whose team will play Los Lunas today in the fifth-place game. “I thought we got so much better ball movement and spacing. We made them get out of their zone and go to man a little bit and then they had to go back to their zone.