Royal Knights rout Riverside, 42-0

ROYAL CITY - The Royal High School Knights football team rode a wave of confidence into the opening round of state playoff action and dominated the Riverside Rams for a 42-0 shutout to advance to the quarterfinals.

The Knights will play Freeman this Saturday at 1 p.m. at Moses Lake Lion's Field seeking a ticket to the semi-finals.

The Knights were looking to capitalize on their upset win over the top-ranked Zillah Leopards the previous week and carry that momentum into the matchup with Riverside. Mission accomplished.

Once again, the defense set the tone early and controlled the line of scrimmage. Riverside has great offensive skill players, and the Knights knew they couldn't let them get off to a fast start.

Defensive tackles Collin Christensen and Teddy Mead were a disruptive force from the onset and never let the Ram offense find a rhythm. The Riverside rushing attack had been able to get to the outside successfully against most opponents this season, but Miguel Ayala and Emilio Bustos controlled the edges and kept the Rams bottled up.

That front four turned every play into a war. They recorded three quarterback sacks, and it seemed like half of the tackles were made behind the line of scrimmage.

"We didn't do anything different with our scheme," Royal defensive coordinator Jeremy Scroggins said. "The guys are just learning what they are capable of over the past few games and playing with great intensity. We liked our match-ups up front."

Ram quarterback Sam Zanoni completed just four passes for a total of just three yards. His talented receiver Dallas Shuler had only one catch for 10 yards, and the other three completions were all for negative yards. The defense held Riverside to just 125 total yards for the game.

The offense turned excellent field position into a scoring onslaught over a 10-minute span that led to a commanding 28-0 halftime lead.

Running back Darrin Miller got things going with a 10-yard touchdown run with 1:17 left in the first quarter. After shutting down the Ram offense to force another punt, Royal got the ball at midfield on their its possession.

On the first play of the drive, Ayala carried the ball over the left side and appeared to be stopped for a modest gain, but the defender focused on trying to strip the ball instead of make a sure tackle. Ayala made him pay by spinning free and racing up the left sideline for a 50-yard score and a 14-0 lead.

Another stalled Riverside effort gave Royal the ball on the 50-yard line again on the very next possession. This time it took two plays to score.

Quarterback Kaden Jenks delivered a screen pass to Jose Ponce. Taking advantage of some great blocking, Ponce darted through the Riverside pursuit and raced to the end zone for a 21-0 lead.

Miller turned in another great rushing performance. He played for Riverside High School last year before moving with his family to Royal over the summer. With the extra motivation to perform well, he rushed for 125 yards, had a 17-yard pass reception and scored touchdowns of 10, 9 and 18 yards for the Knights.

Jenks completed seven of eleven passing attempts for 148 yards and touchdown tosses of 50 and 20 yards. He averaged 21 yards per completion.