Royal rout of Warden

ROYAL CITY — The Royal High School Knights outgunned a powerful Warden Cougars football team 42-7 and moved to 7-0 after Friday night's homecoming game victory at David Nielsen Memorial Field.

Senior quarterback Ray Valle threw for four touchdowns and ran for one more to lead the Knights' offense. Overall, Valle was 11 of 19 passing with 251 yards through the air and one bobbled pass for an interception. Valle has maintained 60 percent passing efficiency on the season with a 14 to 1 touchdown to interception ratio.

"During the first half they were keying in on run so we had to do something about that and get some passing going," Valle said after the game.

Wide receiver A.J. Eldredge made up for the dropped pass that caused Valle's second interception of the season by securing four long passes during the game, putting three in the end zone. Eldredge led all receivers on the night with 141 yards.

"He knows how to get open," Valle said of the junior receiver.

Following the Cougars' first scoring drive of the game with 5:42 left in the third quarter, capped by the one yard TD plunge of A.J. Phillips, the Knights quickly put 2004 class 1A player of the year Jeff Jack to work on the ground.

Jack carried the ball 15 times on the night for 85 yards. Most of those yards came on a single drive where he overpowered and out-ran defenders on successive runs before finally ending up in the end zone on a 5-yard run to put the Knights firmly in the lead 28-7 with 2:25 left in the third quarter.

The touchdown was his 18th of the season and his yardage total moved him to within 15 yards of 1,000 on the season.

The Cougars mishandled the ensuing kickoff and ended up starting their next drive on their own 12 yard line. It was all downhill from there as the Cougars couldn't get anything going through the air all night and ended their first possession in the fourth quarter with a wobbly pass that was picked off by Valle.

The Cougars seemed to move the ball with stronger running in the second half, but an effective passing game was missing all night that could have offset the Knights' defense.

"By the second half we found the right combination of backs that would really run hard," said Cougars' head coach Jerry Powell. "We could run some counters against them because they pursue so well. That's what really opened things up. We did have a real nice drive to start the second half."

The Cougars brought Julian Lopez and A.J. Phillips in at running back in the second half, Powell said, and both runners were effective after a slow start from Nathan Alvarado in the backfield.

Powell said the passing game was ineffective with only 51 yards through the air as the Knights defense continued to be aggressive rushing the passer with blitzes and his quarterbacks were not getting the ball away quickly.

"We couldn't get the ball released down field as far as we wanted to," Powell said. "Credit Royal with that, because they are tough to pass deep against."

The Cougars' defense was able to hold the Knights' running backs to only 5 yards per carry for 100 yards on the night. Unfortunately, their own offense could only put together 165 yards and a meager 3 yards per run.

Next Friday, the Cougars, now 4-4 overall, host Highland and Powell hopes that a victory in that match-up will propel them to a fourth consecutive playoff.

"Playoff teams better watch out because I think we're capable," he said.