The Raton Tiger football team started the 2025 high school football season by traveling almost 6 hours to the Tohatchi Cougars, but the drive back home seemed a lot shorter as Raton returned with a 54-0 shutout win.
The Tigers wasted no time to get on the board as Cael Walton’s 57 yard run on the first play from scrimmage and the Logan Elliott PAT set the tone for the game and with less than a minute into it, Raton lead 7-0.
Tohatchi’s first possession had a positive gain of nine on a run from Deandre Rios, but then a procedure penalty followed by an incompletion and the Cougars faced a 4th and 6 from their own 37, but Tohatchi elected to go for it and Raton’s Harlem Coley tackled the receiver short of the mark to gain and Raton took over inside Courgar territory. That theme would play itself out several times throughout the game as Tohatchi repeatedly went for it on 4th down and did not have one conversion, giving Raton good field position on several occasions.
After both teams failed on fourth down attempts, the Tigers mounted a drive near the end of the first period that spilled over into the 2nd quarter with QB Azden Romero finding Cael Walton on a 20 yard TD pass at the 11:00 mark to make it 14-0.
A hard rain started falling after Raton’s score and that was followed by a short power outage knocking the lights out briefly. But once the power came back on Raton turned its own power on and completed an 11 play scoring drive culminating in an 18 yard screen pass TD from Romero to Harlem Coley. That made the score 21-0 with less than two minutes left in the half, but Tohatchi gifted Raton good field position by trying a long fourth down conversion that gave Raton the ball at the Cougar 25. Three Walton runs later it was 28-0 at the half.
The second half saw Tohatchi receiving the ball and fumbling the kickoff, but recovered deep in their own territory. Two first down passes later by QB Tristan Begay, the Cougars had a first down on their own 27. Begay was injured and left the game, but Tohatchi again tried to convert a long fourth down deep inside their own territory and after they were unsuccessful, gave Raton a first down in the Redzone at the 17. Two plays later Elijah Kenny caught a short TD pass from Romero and with 7:36 left in the 3rd, Raton lead 34-0.
Begay did return for the Cougars, but the Raton defense was not impressed and held them again to force a fourth down conversion attempt that, again, was unsuccessful, giving Raton great field position that they quickly took advantage of with a Luciano Castillo reception to the 3, followed by a Colt Ayon TD reception to make it 41-0 and a continuous clock going into the 4th quarter.
Raton would score twice more in the next 6 and ½ minutes as Xayden Mares broke up another 4th and long conversion attempt by the Cougars and Raton quickly made them pay with a 37 yard screen pass TD from Braylon Walton to Cooper King to make it 48-0.
Raton defense would force a fumble with 6:36 to play and again the offense would take advantage, this time a 64 yard scintillating run by Coley to end the game at 54-0.
Raton will remain on the road for next week’s contest at Lamar, CO with kickoff set for 7 pm on August 29. KRTN will again broadcast the game on 93.9 FM and will stream the audio on Facebook.
