Under the bright Friday night lights, quarterback Colton Cohea scored three rushing touchdowns from 64, 95 and from 37 yards to lead the Pirates over the Bearkats 48-13. Cohea rushed for 208 yards and passed for 151 yards with two more touchdowns.
“When we started I felt confident we were going to be able to play them tough since we have in the past,” said Raymondville head coach Frank Cantu. “We played sloppy and against a team like this you cannot have those kinds of plays.
“They scored on long ones because of missed tackles and then a turnover and you cannot have that against Sinton. They did a great job, they didn’t do anything fancy we just needed to buckle down and tackle.”
On the Pirates’ first possession, Cohea took the first snap and ran down the middle of he field before breaking to the outside, outrunning the Bearkats secondary on his way to a 64-yard touchdown and a 7-0 lead.
That wasn’t the last from Cohea. After getting pinned deep in their own territory, Cohea took a quarterback keeper and blasted straight up the middle, breaking a hand full of tackles and going 95 yards for the touchdown with 10:43 left in the second quarter.
Cohea showed his arm strength in the game as well, passing for touchdowns of 37 and 40 yards.
Down 21-0, the Bearkats responded with an 11-yard quarterback keeper from Raymondville’s Daniel Gutierrez to cut the lead to 21-7 with 5:40 left in the second quarter.
“Our quarterback, Daniel, at times I felt like he was thrown around but he threw some beautiful passes,” said Cantu. “I think he showed some of his arm strength with some of the throws and he’s just going to get better.
“For a sophomore to come in here and take some of those hits and get back up, he really showed what he was made of.”
In the third quarter Bert Najera showed some of his talent with a 15-yard touchdown run to score the Kats’ second TD.
“Our kids played hard even when things weren’t going our way,” said Cantu. “The good thing is they played gritty and never gave up. ‘We’re going to be OK.”
Next week Raymondville begins district play at Orange Grove.