Knights defeat Wahluke 3-0 in SCAC opener

ROYAL CITY — The Royal Knights claimed a win in Thursday’s South Central Athletic Conference (East) contest against Wahluke, opening up league play with a 3-0 win over the Warriors.

While the win is nice, Royal head coach Jens Jensen said the Knights are remaining humble after the league opener.

“It’s our first (league) game of the season, so we’re not getting too excited,” he said. “It’s a good way to start, for sure.”

Two of the Knights’ goals came in the first 10 minutes of both halves, with the first goal being scored in the eighth minute and the second coming in the 44th minute, both of which came from junior Audrey Bergeson.

“Most goals are scored on either five, 10 minutes of the start of the game and either side of halftime,” Jensen said. “That’s when, statistically, a lot of goals are scored. We really focus on that.”

Bergeson’s second goal came off a free kick taken by senior Sonia Ledezma, who placed the ball just in front of the Wahluke net. Keeping an aggressive mindset, Bergeson attacked the ball just as it landed and scored off a header to the left side of the goal.

“I just saw the ball coming in, and I just had to wait for it to come in,” Bergeson said. “I saw the goal right in front, and it went right in.”

Ledezma recorded another assist in the 74th minute after Royal senior Brittany Ramos scored off a corner kick taken by Ledezma.

“Usually when I do my corner kicks I do my best to look wide,” Ledezma said. “Not too wide because you never know what to expect.”

The midfield of the Knights found success breaking up Wahluke passes, which severely dampened any Warrior attacks toward the Royal net.

“It’s just being aggressive and seeing where they’re at, where the ball is going and where that play might be,” Ledezma said. “As a midfield, I can see those plays a little bit quicker than some others.”

“It was really hard to connect passes today,” Wahluke head coach Cele Lopez said. “We couldn’t find anyone, we didn’t have movement without the ball. That didn’t help us.”

Thursday night was Royal’s third win in its previous four games, all of which have been clean sheets by senior goalkeeper Randi Allred.

“It’s the first time she’s ever played goalkeeper — she’s got great hands, she’s a catcher for softball,” Jensen said. “She has a really sure set of hands back there, which is nice and gives us a lot of confidence.”

Royal improved to 3-2-2 with Thursday’s win and now prepares for a league game against Connell on Tuesday at 6 p.m.

“We knew that if we played together as a team, find each other’s feet and worked together to make those passes that we could play our game and it would work out,” Bergeson said.

After Saturday’s home game against Warden, the Warriors (3-2-1) will host Toppenish on Tuesday at 4 p.m.

“We were confident that we were going to get a better result,” Lopez said. “We’ve been playing decent in the past games, we were looking solid. Soccer, that’s one of the best things that it has — It’s not always the way you think it’s going to happen. They wanted it more than us today.”

Ian Bivona may be reached at ibivona@columbiabasinherald.com.

Box score

WAH: 0-0 0

ROY: 1-2 3