Royal boys stumble three times

ROYAL CITY - Inconsistency, a problem that plagued the Royal High boys in basketball last year, has struck again. After starting the season with a win, they lost three games in a row last week.

"There were two games that we should have won and one that was a great experience for our kids to play against a 6-10 player from Chelan," coach Pete Christensen.

The Knights lost 51-46 to Warden on Tuesday, 58-48 to Highland on Friday and 61-32 to Chelan on Saturday. They had a 22-11 fourth quarter against Warden.

"We never really got our game going until it was too late," Christensen said. "We trailed early and never could recover."

The Knights will get another chance to play Warden this Saturday. They will play Cascade tonight and Wahluke on Friday.

The Knights had three players scoring in double digits against Warden. Teddy Mead had 16, Chase Christensen had 12 and Jonathan Partida had 10. Riley Lefler was out for this game with a pinched nerve in his back.

"We did have a great run in the fourth quarter, being down by 16 points to start it off," Christensen said. "We put a press on and got the score back to within a couple points but couldn't quite close the door on them."

Mead also led in rebounds with 11. Partida had seven, and Christensen added five. Aaron Johnson had five assists, and Christensen and Kaden Jenks had three steals each.

"Against Highland, we were looking forward to getting back to the winning side of things," coach Christensen said. "We started off really well. We had good looks at the basket, and we were taking advantage of the transition."

Royal won the first quarter, 15-14. Everything was working great until the second quarter when the air went out of the balloon. Highland won the frame 15-5.

"We tended to want to rush things during this quarter, and the momentum shifted to them," coach Christensen said.

Chase Christensen had a big game, scoring 20 points and grabbing eight rebounds. Jenks had seven rebounds, and Lefler made four steals.

"This is a very capable group of young men who are ready and willing to make the changes needed to right the ship," coach Christensen said. "We aren't that far off from where we need to be.

Chelan was a very quick and tall team. The goats won the second period 16-4 and led 33-16 at the half. They won the third quarter 16-4 to put the game out of reach.

Partida was the leading scorer with 10 points. Chase Christensen and Lefler led in rebounds with four each.

"I look forward to this coming week as we prepare to take on teams that we feel we should be competitive with," coach Christensen said. "We need to work on a few things this week to help bring us up a couple notches so we can finish out the game."