Domingos Unknown No Longer : Rams: Punter fills in as the placekicker and lifts unbeaten L.A. to a 16-13 overtime victory over the Packers.

They barely knew his name, but they counted on him to win the game. Most of them didn’t even know why he was out there, but they were celebrating when he ran off.

Last season, Steven Domingos was a punter for the semipro Fresno Bandits. Saturday night, he was making three field goals for the Rams, the second one sending the game into overtime, the third one winning the game, 16-13, before 41,252 at Anaheim Stadium.

The Rams are 3-0 in the exhibition season after their second consecutive overtime game thanks to a player whose last winning kick came when he was a senior at Golden West High in Visalia.

Domingos, who wasn’t quite ready to be a placekicker in the semipro leagues after a college career at San Francisco State, was on call as the Rams’ placekicker because Tony Zendejas was had a sore left leg.

Because the Rams had cut their only other placekicker a few days earlier, Domingos, who has been having an impressive camp as a punter, was it.

“The first one (a 22-yarder to tie the score, 13-13) was a little shanky,” Ram receiver Flipper Anderson said with a smile. “I didn’t think he was going to make the next one (a 36-yarder to win the game).

“But he stepped right up there with confidence and put it through.”

Domingos appeared dazed in the locker room afterward, as though he wasn’t quite sure what he had done.

“Toward the end (of the drive), I was thinking, ‘Uh, oh, here it comes,”’ Domingos said.

And when he came onto the field for the kick?

“Nothing,” he said. “I didn’t think of anything. Actually, my mind was blank. It was, like, quiet. The ball came out, just went through with my motion, and looked up, saw it go through. And I didn’t know what to say.”

Before he got out there, with the moment approaching, his teammates, eager to see an end to the game, were talking to him. He was listening.

“They were just telling me, ‘It’s your time to shine.’ And I went out. . . . Am I shining now?”

Said Coach Chuck Knox: “It was a pressure kick. He made it, to his credit. And it will help him with this team or to earn a roster spot on another team.”

Domingos had tied the score with less than two minutes to play with the 22-yarder off the infield dirt. It held up when Chris Jacke’s attempt to win for the Packers with no timing remaining sailed wide to the left from 44 yards out.

Marcus Dupree, who rushed for 100 yards during last week’s overtime victory over the Raiders, gained 42 yards in nine carries and scored a two-yard touchdown. Dupree seems to be giving his best shot at getting the starting tailback job.

“Again, he came in, moved the ball and the pile,” Knox said of Dupree. “He certainly didn’t do anything to hurt his chances.”

Cleveland Gary got the start at tailback, and gained 16 yards in his first seven carries of the exhibition season after a hamstring injury.

Dupree and rookie quarterback T.J. Rubley sparked the drive that led to Dupree’s touchdown. Dupree carried five times for 20 yards and Rubley completed all four of his passes during the drive, which narrowed an early Packer lead to 13-10.

The Rams finally got a look at No. 1 pick Sean Gilbert, who played most of the first half after sitting out the first two exhibitions because of a sore ankle.

Meanwhile, Ram cornerback Darryl Henley had two second-half interceptions. The second, against rookie and 1991 Heisman Trophy winner Ty Detmer, came with about five minutes left in the fourth quarter and gave the Rams the ball in Packer territory.

From there, Rubley passed to Aaron Cox for 11 yards, scrambled up the middle for 12, and found Cox again for 16 yards to the Packer eight-yard line.

That set up Domingos’ second field goal for the 13-13 tie.

Moments later, defensive end Mike Piel knocked the ball out of Packer quarterback Brett Favre’s hand. The fumble was recovered by linebacker Paul Butcher at the Green Bay 36.

Four plays later, the Rams had first and 10 on the Packer 14. But Rubley passed into the end zone looking for Cox and was intercepted by Lewis Billups, ending that scoring attempt.

The first-team Ram defense had some problems dealing with the Packers’ short-passing game. Quarterback Don Majkowski completed all but four of his 16 pass attempts during the first half, leading Green Bay on two scoring drives.

The first came on a short pass to former Ram fullback Buford McGee, who ran 17 yards for a touchdown, the first score of the game. After Ram quarterback Jim Everett and receiver Anderson set up a 23-yard field goal by Domingos, another short-pass-driven Packer drive led to a field goal and a 10-3 lead.

Then, at the end of the first half, Favre completed five of his six passes for 44 yards to set up a 39-yard field goal and a 13-3 halftime lead.