Knights defeat Meridian in state tourney

ROYAL CITY — The No. 3 seed Knights opened the 1A Boys State Soccer Tournament with a win over No. 19 Meridian on Friday, defeating the Trojans 1-0 to advance to Saturday’s quarterfinal round.

“It was just grinding it out,” Royal head coach Jens Jensen said. “They played two center mids that play defensive, so they’re really defending all the time with either five or six. You saw their hope was to put it forward and find (Meridian sophomore Skyler Rowe) and hope he can do something, and the rest of their team is trying just to cancel you out.”

After a scoreless first half, Royal sophomore Anderson Brown was tackled in the penalty area, leading to a penalty kick attempt in the 49th minute. Senior Santiago Gonzalez stepped up to the penalty mark, facing Meridian’s tall goalkeeper, but buried the shot to the bottom right corner of the net.

“The keeper, he was really big – that’s what I realized when I was up there,” Gonzalez said. “I just stuck to my routine and put it away.”

The Royal defense held the Trojans to four shots on the Knight net during Friday’s win.

“They have a couple good guys, so we shut those guys down and played our game,” Royal senior Case Christensen said. 

Meridian opened the match on the attack, aided by the wind blowing in their favor; the Trojans recorded four corner kick attempts through the first 21 minutes of the match.

“The whole season we’ve kind of been slow-starters — we try to get a feel for the game in the first 10 minutes,” Gonzalez said. “Once we get a grip of the game, I think we did pretty good. We created (some) chances — hit the bar two to three times.”

After halftime, when the fields were flipped, Jensen said the Knights used the wind to their advantage.

“They’re going to be looking into the sun No. 1, second of all we’re going to have the wind,” Jensen said. “We needed to turn things around. It wasn’t like the first half was terrible, but for sure, the wind was providing them with more opportunities. We had the wind, they had to look into the sun, so it was time to turn things around. And pretty quickly we were pinning them back.”

Christensen said last weekend’s win over rival Wahluke in the South Central Athletic Conference district final gave the Knights a morale boost heading into the opening weekend of the state tournament.

“We felt pretty good coming off that win against Wahluke in districts, winning the district title, so we felt pretty good coming in here,” Christensen said. “We knew if we did our thing we would come out with the victory.”

Royal had a quick turnaround after Friday evening’s match, moving on to play No. 11 seed Seton Catholic in the quarterfinals Saturday. The Cougars defeated No. 6 Wahluke 3-0 later on Friday night in Royal City.

“(Take an) ice bath, and make sure everybody rests, rests, rests,” Jensen said of the turnaround between matches. “Just do nothing until (Saturday).”

Results from Saturday’s 1 p.m. match were not available in time for press deadline, but will be included in Tuesday’s edition of the Columbia Basin Herald. The winner of Saturday’s match advances to the state semifinals and will face the winner of No. 2 Vashon Island and No. 10 Quincy on Saturday in Renton. The Jackrabbits defeated No. 7 Toppenish 2-1 on Friday evening.

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

Box score

MER: 0-0 0
ROY: 0-1 1

    Royal senior Santiago Gonzalez, foreground, attempts a penalty kick in the 49th minute against Meridian on Friday. Gonzalez scored the game’s lone goal on the play, giving the Knights a 1-0 win.
  

    Royal senior Joby Villalobos, in black, gets past a Meridian defender during the first half against the Trojans.
  

    Royal senior Miguel Soriano sends the ball upfield on a free kick in the first half against Meridian on Friday.