Host Rio Rancho survived 11 penalties and four turnovers Friday night, using a 21-point first period to cruise past Carlsbad, 24-3.

It was the first meeting between the teams since the Rams lost their first-ever state playoff game in Carlsbad in 2000 – when this year’s seniors were nine years old.

The game began as if the Rams (4-3) would rout the Cavemen ((3-5), as Rio Rancho scored on its third play of the game.

Troy Harris looks for running room in a recent game. He's gone over the 1,000-yard mark for the season, and has had at least 100 yards rushing in all seven of his team's games.

Taking the opening kickoff, quarterback Tyler Baker completed a 12-yard pass to get the ball to the CHS 42.

Troy Harris got the ball on the next play and raced 55 yards to the 3, going over the 1,000-yard mark for the season. Not surprisingly, Baker handed the pigskin to Harris on the next play and he cashed it in for a touchdown, his team-leading 12th of the year.

Zach Rogers added the extra point for a 7-0 lead.

Carlsbad went three-and-out, but a sustained drive wound up short of the end zone when the Cavemen picked off a Baker aerial.

Carlsbad could do nothing offensively, and Dillon Metzgar returned a CHS punt to the Cavemen 35.

Six plays later, Rogers kicked a 27-yard field goal for a 10-0 lead.

Metzgar wasn’t done. He intercepted a Jacob Galindo pass to the CHS 1.

Linebacker Carlo LiRosi, who had scored three TDs on as many carries in the Rams’ previous two games, got the call again in the Wishbone and made it 4-for-4 and 16-0 on the scoreboard.

Rogers tacked on the PAT, the Rams had a 17-0 lead and the game was less than eight minutes old.

Strangely, it seemed, each team would score only one more time the rest of the way.

After a scoreless second quarter, Carlsbad got a 34-yard field goal from Dylan Munoz to spoil what would have been the Rams’ second shutout in a row.

Baker scored from the 3 to cap a seven-play, 55-yard drive. Rogers made it 24-3 with the PAT, and 2:31 remained in the third period.

That concluded the scoring, although Rogers, who’d earlier missed a 38-yard field goal in the second quarter, missed a 37-yard attempt with 4:30 left in the game.

Harris finished, unofficially, with 186 yards on 25 carries, giving him 1,155 yards for the season on 145 carries – an average of almost eight yards a carry.

Rio Rancho was penalized 11 times for 99 yards. The Rams had 54 of those yards walked off in the first half, when Carlsbad managed just 52 yards worth of offense against the Rams’ feisty defense, led by LiRosi and fellow linebacker Zach Drapeau, plus defensive end Malcolm Butters – and the work of Metzgar, a safety.

The Rams open the District 1-5A slate Friday when Gallup visits. The Rams’ final two games are on Thursday evenings: at Milne Stadium to face West Mesa on Oct. 30, and back at Rio Rancho Stadium to entertain Cibola in what traditionally is the district championship game on Nov. 6.