ROYAL CITY - It doesn't get any tougher than last week was for Royal High soccer. The Knights lost to highly-regarded Granger and Highland by identical 1-0 scores.

At the same time, Royal demonstrated it can play at the top of the SCAC, particularly on defense. It limited Highland to six shots on goal and Granger to five.

The Granger match was grueling. It was tied, 0-0, after regulation. It took eight rounds of shootout for Granger to settle it.

"The boys had a number of chances to get the only goal that was required to secure the win, but Granger always did well to get into the goal mouth and keep the ball out," coach Jens Jensen said.

And the goal was not a friend to the Knights. Royal struck both uprights and the crossbar a number of times, taking nine shots on goal.

"Granger is a solid team, and they worked hard for each other," Jensen said. "They should be in the mix as the season progresses. So it was good to get a look at them."

The main focus against Highland was to create and take more shots, and the Knights did that early. They had two clear chances to score but lacked that final bit of impetus to get the goal.

Highland was the opposite. On the one dangerous chance the Scotties had, they scored.

The ball was hammered in from about 20 yards out 33 minutes into the game.

"We should have closed down the player a bit quicker but, all in all, the defense is looking more and more solid," Jensen said.