Royal girls fall to Naches, Connell last week

ROYAL CITY - The Royal girls had one of their better offensive performances of the year last week, but they dropped two more prep basketball games.

On Friday, Naches stopped Royal, 68-35, in a non-league contest. On Saturday, Connell won a SCAC East game 81-39.

The Friday game, with a very good Naches team, got away in the second half. The Knights were outscored, 44-19.

"We played a really solid first half," Coach Phil Daubel said. "We were unable to sustain it into the second half."

At half-time, Daubel talked to the girls about making the first run of the second half, saying that, usually in a tight game, the first team to make that run ends up winning the game. But Naches got the big jump.

"Overall, I was pleased with our effort," Daubel said.

As usual, Flor Araujo led the Knights in scoring with 13 points. Jennifer Ledezma had seven, and Staci Hebdon and Guadalupe Guadarrama had five each.

Hebdon, Guadarrama and Jacky Guadarrama led the team with five rebounds each. Jacky Guadarrama made five assists, and Hebdon and Guadalupe Guadarrama made four and three steals respectively.

Saturday's game was a track meet. The Knights ran well and had one of their better scoring nights, but Connell was too tall and too fast. The Eagles closed the night with a 20-4 fourth period.

"I was happy with our effort," Daubel said. "I really liked our energy tonight, and we fought hard. We had some really good stretches tonight but had a few stretches where we fell asleep on defense. It is still a matter of us putting together a full 32 minutes, and we made some steps to getting to that point."

Araujo led the scoring with 17 points. Ledezma had six, and Jacky Guadarrama and Sophia Rodriguez had five each.

Araujo and Rodriguez took down six rebounds each. Ledezma and Bianca Castellon grabbed four each.

Guadalupe Guadarrama had four steals, Staci Hebdon had three and Araujo and Castellon had two each. Jacky Guadarrama had three steals and Araujo had two.

Royal will continue the season tonight at Othello in a non-leaguer. They will travel to River View on Friday and host Burbank on Saturday.