Knights on to semi-finals with 41-9 win over Montesano

ROYAL CITY – Even with being down 9-7 early in the first quarter, the No. 1 seed Royal Knights were unfazed by the situation. The No. 8 Montesano Bulldogs had broken off big plays to reach scoring position through the first seven minutes of game time, something they wouldn’t be able to do again in Royal’s 41-9 win on Saturday. “It was great,” Royal Head Coach Wiley Allred said. “We knew they would be a good team, I thought they were underseeded at No. 8. I was really happy with the first half, I was really happy with the second half.” Montesano could not recreate its first-quarter offense throughout the rest of the game on Saturday, only totaling 152 total yards over its next 10 drives. Thirty-eight of those yards came on a fourth-quarter run while Royal was down by 32 points. “Our defense settled into what they were doing, and I didn’t think we were going to give up the big play all day long,” Allred said. “Once we settled into what we were supposed to do, that’s what helped our defense.” This isn’t the first time that the Knights and Montesano have squared off late in the season, with Royal having lost to the Bulldogs in the 1994 and 2012 state title games.