It was celebration time down in Las Cruces Saturday night

For the University of New Mexico, it looked good as a 7-point favorite over and at state rival New Mexico State Saturday night.

And it still appeared promising when the Lobos scored first on a 44-yard field goal by Luke Drzewieck’s to go up 3-0 in the first quarter down in Las Cruces.

But suddenly things turned around when the home team that hadn’t done well lately on the gridiron against UNM got behind a 22-yard scoring strike from freshman

quarterback Gavin Frakes to Ahmonte Watkins and the Aggies went up 7-3 after converting the point-after.

And with this the Aggies, now 2-5, never trailed again, even after Drzewieck added a 33-yard field goal just 49 seconds into the second quarter, and this got the Lobos within 7-6 at the intermission.

Then with a first down touchdown connection from Frakes to Kordell David with 11:16 left in the third quarter, and with the PAT it was now 14-6. Also in the third quarter on the next possession, Frakes directed a 10-play, 47-yard drive that was capped on a 2-yard touchdown run by Star Thomas to up the advantage to 21-6.

After that, Drzewieck added a fourth quarter 33-yard field goal that ended the scoring and drop the Lobos to 2-5 overall.

But it was quite a night for Frakes in this rivalry. He completed 10 of 17 passes for 119 yards, although NMSU managed only 225 yards of offense in the outcome.