By Marty Mayfield
KRTN Multi-Media
The Clayton YellowJackets travelled up Highway 64/87 to join Raton for TigerFest in Tiger Gym Friday evening where the teams split the wins in an interesting way with the JV girls and Varsity boys coming out on top.
The JV boys played their game at Raton Intermediate school while the JV girls played at Tiger Gym. This is done so that the girls who play varsity will be there when the varsity game starts. The JV boys have the varsity girl’s game to make it to Tiger Gym for the boy’s varsity game.
The JV girls lead by Alex Romero with 12 points and Paige Lemons with 10 points toppled the JV Yellowjackettes 40-7. The JV boys lost to Clayton 60-36.
The Lady Tigers took the floor next and kept it a low scoring game in the first half with good defense but not a lot of scoring as Clayton led 14-7 at halftime. The third quarter is where the damage was done as Clayton outscored Raton 15-9 to stretch out the lead 31 to 16. As the buzzer sounded to end the game Clayton marked the win column with a 41 to 20 win.
In the boy’s varsity game Raton took off with a 19 point run holding Clayton to only five. Raton played a fast aggressive game moving the ball up the court and taking it to the basket for scores. At halftime 6-3 Raton lead the 11-2 Yellowjackets 39-22. Texline being a common opponent this year Clayton won that game 55-49 while Raton fell to the Tornadoes 89-52.
Second half action saw Raton maintain the lead, however, the Yellowjackets threatened late in the fourth quarter closing in to within six by outscoring Raton 18-13. Once again the free throw line was friendly to Raton as the boys only missed three of the 19 attempts while Clayton missed 18 shots. Another example of how important free throws can be in a game. At the buzzer it was a 70-66 win for Raton.
JV Girls
Clayton 4 3 0 0 7
Raton 14 8 10 8 40
JV Boys
Clayton 10 11 13 26 60
Raton. 6 4 14 12 36
Varsity Girls
Clayton 7 7 15 10 41
Raton 4 3 9 4 20
Clayton High Point
Morgan Crisp 12 1 of 2 free throws
Emerson Beiland 12
Free Throws 6 of 10 attempts
Raton High Point
Samantha Phillips 6 0 of 1 free throws
Free Throws 2 of 4 attempts
Varsity Boys
Clayton 5 13 17 18 66
Raton 19 20 19 13 70
Clayton High Point
Jonovan Hildago 19 0 of 1 free throws. 3 3-pointers
Blake McClure 13 4 of 9 free throws
Daniel Marquez 15 5 of 9 free throws
Free throws 14 of 33 attempts
Raton High Point
WD Hyer 16 4 of 4 free throws
Cayden Walton 15 5 of 6 free throws
Anderson Weese 16 5 of 5 free throws
Chase Walton 12. 2 of 4 free throws
Free Throws 16 of 19 attempts
