Prep basketball: ROYAL Boys 52, SOAP LAKE 23

SOAP LAKE - It was a tough strategic battle for three quarters last night between the host Soap Lake Eagles and their guests, the Royal Knights.

For three quarters the Eagles hung within striking range of Royal, trailing 31-20 going into the fourth quarter.

There, the Knights began to get their rhythm into full gear and capitalizing on good ball movement and Eagles' desperation pulled away for a 52-23 victory.

Royal (3-5) outscored Soap Lake 22-3 over the game's final eight minutes.

"Our kids just started passing around and finding the open guy," Royal head coach Pete Christensen said. "We also ran the court really well and put Soap Lake in positions where they had to gamble a little bit. That set up a lot of inside shots."

Many more interior scores came in the second half for Royal which took 18 shots from inside the lane compared to only six in the game's first 16 minutes of play.

"We were trying to run some set plays that we've been working on," Christensen said of his team's performance in the first half. "They were three-point type shots and they weren't falling so we switched back to just working it around and finding open spots. That worked a lot better."

Soap Lake (2-6) hung tough with their quicker, speedier lineup but struggled to capitalize on their strong defensive effort.

"They were really quick and were opportunistic," Christensen said. "We'd get the ball inside and they would swarm us really quick. They would trap the post players. We had a mismatch down low and they would bring someone down from the top to double team and they would force us to commit turnovers."

Royal committed 18 turnovers on the evening.

"The scouting report told me they didn't have that many good shooters and could throw the ball away," Soap Lake head coach Bill Pierce said. "They did that and helped us stay in the ballgame."

The Knights were led by Kent Christensen's 14 points and 12 rebounds, while Danny Vermeer added 13 points.

Reid Lefler helped Royal control the boards with eight rebounds of his own.

Soap Lake was led by Jason Korneychuk's 11 points and David Coreas who scored 10 points.

The Knights hope to ride this performance back into league play which restarts this weekend.

"This helps us to get ready for our game on Friday," Christensen said. "Mabton is not very tall and quite quick so they are similar to Soap Lake. The boys are getting more and more confident and comfortable with every game. A lot of good things are happening."

For Soap Lake the key now is for the team to start rewarding their defensive with better offensive output.

"I thought my kids played hard we just can't score," Pierce said. "When you can't score we can't win. We gave them fits on defense and then we would go down and throw it away or miss our shots. The offense just has to reward itself. The kids that need to shoot where shooting, but the other kids weren't shooting."