Royal drives toward playoff bye

ROYAL CITY - The Knights started their big push toward a bye round in the soccer playoffs with three key victories last week.

Royal stunned previously unbeaten league-leading Highland, 1-0, improved to 9-3, and took over second place in the South Central Athletic Conference.

"Second place is very important," coach Jens Jensen said. "Second place gets you a bye in the first round of the playoffs and a home game for your second round."

The week started with a 3-1 victory over Granger On the Royal Field. It was a revenge match. Granger had stopped Royal 4-1 previously on the Granger field.

"That was a match that seem to get away from us," Jensen said. "We were expecting a response from the boys this time around and they showed good commitment and battled their way to the win."

Luis Alvarez scored Royal's first goal by heading in on a corner, and Christian Guerrero got a brace by battling with the keeper and several defenders to poke away a goal followed by a wind-aided shot from 45 yards that looped the keeper to give the Knights a two-goal cushion.

On Thursday, Highland came to Royal leading the league with an unbeaten record. Royal needed the victory to secure second place. The match was a battle to the death. Royal claimed a 1-0 victory on penalty kicks, 4-3.

The Knights scored first from a throw-in when the ball was flicked into the far post off the head of a Highland defender for an own goal.

Royal suffered a moment of indecision early in the second half that allowed Highland an open shot from 20 yards that the Scots clinically placed in the corner. The remainder of the match had close calls for both teams, but nothing worked through one overtime.

So the teams settled the outcome with penalty kicks. Royal made four, and Highland got three. The goal makers for Royal were Hugo Rodriguez, Lupe Arceo, Marcos Quiroz and Luis Garcia.

As expected, the Ki-Be contest was not much of a game. Royal scored early and often and ran away 6-0.

Freshman forward Jose Ponce had a big game for the Knights. He scored once in the first half and twice in the second.

Garcia started the scoring with a goal resulting from a mass attack from the kickoff that overwhelmed the Ki-Be defense. Guerrero assisted. Uriel Carmona made the score 2-0 on another Guerrero assist.

After two Ponce goals, Guerrero scored to make it 5-0. Ponce scored his third goal on a Luis Cruz feed with a half hour to go in the contest, and Jensen scaled back the offensive attack.