Royal Soccer records third straight win
Bob Kirkpatrick/The Sun Tribune - Royal's Noelia Juarez gets the lone goal against the Warriors.
ROYAL CITY — Royal Girls Soccer is on a heater after picking up its fourth straight win. The Knights latest two victims were the Wahluke Warriors and league powerhouse Ki-Be Bears.
Royal was on the verge of failing to qualify for postseason play after dropping four of six league matches at the mid-way point. But the Knights have found themselves in the thick of it after reeling off three East Conference games to improve to 6-5 and move into sole possession of fourth place and now have the upper hand for the fourth and final playoff spot.
It took two overtime periods and two attempts on the same penalty kick in the match with Ki-Be, but Royal was able to come away with a 1-0 win over the Bears (9-3, 8-2) at David Neilsen Stadium Thursday , Oct. 12.
“There are not many victories that are better than those nobody sees coming,” coach Jens Jensen said. “The girls had one mission tonight: Muzzle the Ki-Be goal scorer and make the rest of the team beat us. They did it while holding Ki-Be to just one shot on goal.”
Royal had seemingly won the match on the first of two penalty kick attempts, but the first one was whistled off by a confused referee and the Knights had to re-kick.
“The Ki-Be defender made a mistake and brought down our attacker in the box. The referee then puts the ball down and told our goalkeeper who was attempting the PK to wait for the whistle. He then walks away and a whistle sounds and she takes the kick and scores,” Jensen said. “The referee first signals goal, and then thought he didn’t blow the whistle so he yellow cards our goalkeeper and tells her to leave the field. New rules this year require cautioned players to leave the field of play until the next substitution opportunity, but the rule does not apply to goalkeepers. I reminded him of that and he allowed her to return and take the kick again. She buried it a second time and the girls won. We were excited at the possibility of taking one point, but were elated to take all three.”
Royal 1
Wahluke 0
The Knights Noelia Juarez scored with two minutes left in the first half and that’s all it took for Royal to pull out a 1-0 win over Wahluke on the Warriors home turf Tuesday, Oct. 10.
The Knights were back on the pitch in Connell to take on the third place Eagles, but the results of the match were not available at press time.