ROYAL CITY - It's tough going two-and-out at a district softball tournament, unless you have the viewpoint of the Royal Knights.

"We got to participate for the first time in six years," coach Pete Christensen said.  

Christensen looks forward to next year with hope and enthusiasm. His girls picked up valuable experience, and his pitchers are young and improving.

"Hitting is the main thing we will be working on next year," he said.  "We will never be able to compete in our league if we are unable to hit the pitchers with average ability."

"I am sure our pitching is going to continue to improve as our pitchers mature," he added. "We have a couple of young pitchers with the potential to make an impact in our league."

It was a struggle for the Knights on Thursday as they traveled to tough Zillah for a first round game. They came out with a 10-0 loss, lasting five innings before the tenth run was scored.  

"Zillah hit us well, and we struggled making contact with the ball, getting only four people on base the entire game," Christensen said.   

Royal did much better on Saturday, falling 5-3 to Goldendale in a loser out game. The Knights hit the ball but not in a timely fashion.

"We did get eight hits in the game, but we only strung them together in the first inning," Christensen said. "We were very patient the first inning and made their pitcher pitch a lot of pitches during that inning, but we got less and less patient each inning after that."

Royal made the Goldendale pitcher throw only three pitches in the bottom of the seventh.  

Gladys Meza, Seila Jenks and Maria Garcia all had two hits in the game and they were the only ones to cross home plate also.