Royal girls' season starts out tough

ROYAL CITY - This is one of the more experienced girls basketball teams in coach Phil Daubel's tenure at Royal High School, but it still has some catching up to do.

Playing their first three games at home lasts week, the Knights dropped all three. The victors were Quincy, 60-31, Cascade, 66-18, and Naches, 61-24.

The highlight for Daubel was the Naches game. His girls were in the lead most of the first quarter before falling behind 11-6.

"We came out strong in the first quarter," he said. "We played well for stretches. We competed better."

"We have to keep our intensity level up for a full 32 minutes," he added. "Our free throw shooting has to improve. We shot only 7-for-25."

Particularly hot for the Knights against Naches was Flor Araujo, who scored 10 points and pulled down six rebounds. Dory Floren picked up eight rebounds, and Kayla Smith got seven.

In the season opener with Quincy, Royal fell behind, 18-6, after one quarter and 32-11 at the half.

"We were able to get good looks but couldn't get the ball to go in the hoop," Daubel said. "We need to get to the line more and take more care of the ball."

Araujo was a scoring leader again with nine points. Smith also scored nine points. Brittany Hebdon and Becca Lee added four points each.

Smith led the rebounding with eight caroms. Araujo had five and Hebdon four. Araujo had six steals.

In Thursday's game with Cascade, Royal was hammered, 28-4, in the first quarter. The score was 44-11 at halftime.

"Cascade plays in one of the toughest 1A leagues in the state, and they showed it," Daubel said. "They killed us on the boards, and we gave up too many second chance points and easy baskets,"

The Knights were led by the 4-point efforts of Araujo, Kailee Harris and Smith. Hebdon scored three points, Jennifer Ledezma two and Floren one.

Floren, Araujo, Hebdon, Smith and Ledezma had three rebounds each. Jacky Guadarrama grabbed two, and Harris and Lupe Guadarrama had one each.

The Royal girls play at home tonight against Medical Lake. Friday they to travel to Highland, and Saturday they travel to Cle Elum.