Royal soccer stuns league champ Highland

ROYAL CITY - Defensive-minded Royal High School forced Highland into a shootout Thursday and won the district A soccer title at Highland, 1-0.

Shoot outs have become a way of life for the Knights. They advanced to the Highland game by beating Warden in a shootout on Tuesday of last week.

Royal, which finished third at state last year, will open the 2013 state tournament today at home against Manson at 6 p.m.. This will be the third straight trip to state for the Knights.

Early on, it appeared that Royal's tactics would not work. Highland pressured the goal time and time again.

However, Royal turned to each threat away. The vaunted Highland offensive of attack was held scoreless for the full 90 minutes of regulation and overtime by the Royal defense and goalkeeper Lupe Arceo.

Royal won the game 1-0 with a 4-2 advantage in the shootout. It was the second time beating Highland by shootout.

Other than the shootout, Highland produced all of the offense. The Scotties outshot Royal 18-5. Arceo had 12 saves in regulation and overtime and two more in the shootout.

Scoring for Royal in the shootout were Hugo Rodriguez, Cesar Bernal, Jose Medina and Luis Garcia.

There was no scoring in the first half of the Warden game. But both teams punched through two balls in the second half. Goals for Royal came from Medina and Bernal.

Nothing was settled in overtime. So the teams went to the shootout, and Royal prevailed 4-2. Scoring for the Knights were Rodriguez, Medina, Garcia and Christian Guerrero.