WARDEN — The Royal Knights (3-1-2) earned a 5-2 road victory against the Warden Cougars (2-4) in a South Central Athletic Conference matchup Tuesday evening. Knights Head Coach Jens Jensen said this win was great in getting the team back on track after a tough stretch of games prior. 

“We’re coming off a pretty intense stretch of games, and we’ve got a handful of guys that are banged up. Several guys aren’t playing and then we’ve got guys that are playing banged up,” said Jensen. “Getting an early lead and putting some distance ... it allowed us to make changes.” 

The Knights got off to a hot start as they scored three points early in the first half to gain a significant lead over the Cougars. Warden began battling on the Royal side of the field and applied enough pressure to score a goal in the final minutes of the half to put the game at 3-1 in favor of Royal at halftime. 

Jensen said the three points scored in the first half were integral to the success of the Knights down the stretch as the team could then pull out players who were nursing injuries and allowed younger players to get some minutes on the field.  

Returning from halftime, the Knights very quickly struck back to score another goal to put the point differential back at three points. Royal would once again score toward the middle of the second half as they increased their lead to 5-1. 

The Cougars fought throughout the final minutes of the game and scored their second goal with less than five minutes left. Royal provided consistent pressure and eventually claimed their 5-2 victory. 

“For us, without a doubt, this is a success on several levels,” said Jensen. 

Royal’s Christian Nieto, who is the leading scorer on the team, knocked in a goal early in the first half, Anderson Brown scored a goal and had an assist and Brayan Miron locked down the back throughout the first half before getting some rest in the second half. The Knights coach said Ernesto Deras and Jeonatan Dircio stayed in throughout the game while their teammates rested and controlled the ball while helping create plays on the field. 

Hunter Golladay from the Cougars played strong defense throughout the game, keeping pressure on any Royal offensive push and Jose Perez scored the final goal of the game. 

Cougars Head Coach Marco Landeros said Warden did not play their best game Tuesday as they are still working toward building their roster to the varsity level. He attributes some of their struggles to possible nerves. 

“When they hear Wahluke, Royal, Connell, Highland, they get nervous,” said Landeros. “It was a good game for them, not for us, it was hard.” 

Following a tough league loss, the Cougars coach said it is important that the team focuses on becoming better for their next matchup. 

“Whatever happened today, happened and let’s turn things around,” he said. “There are more things to work on and we will work on them at practice.” 

Something that the Cougars coach said the team will need to work on that he saw during the game was that they needed to pass the ball more and take more shots on goal. 

“I believe we had two shots on goal, and they went in,” said Landeros. “I told them, ‘If we don’t shoot, you don’t know what’s going to happen. For sure, if you don’t shoot, nothing’s going to happen, but if you shoot, something has to happen.’” 

He said building up confidence will be important as they head through this season in the SCAC. Warden, being a 2B school competing in 1A, is one of the smaller teams in the conference and in doing such they are facing deeper and larger rosters. 

“(Confidence) is going to be the main thing for me to work on with them,” said the Cougars coach. “To tell them, ‘It’s just a team, whenever we’re in there playing it’s 11 against 11. They’re your same age; you shouldn’t be afraid of anything ... Go and play with all you’ve got.’” 

Tuesday’s game was a good lesson for the Knights as they claimed a strong victory, but they still will need to stay sharp as they head down the stretch, said Jensen. Against Warden, toward the end of the game, he saw the team get loose and allowed for points to be scored, which will be something they will need to work on as they head deeper in the season. 

“We’re trying to look for May, so what the big takeaway from this game is, ‘Hey, good win, but it’s a reminder that we’ve got to figure out how to go through these stretches of games we’re heavily favored and stay focused,” he said.  

The Cougars head on the road Thursday to face Cashmere, and the Knights return home Friday to face La Salle at 6 p.m. 

BOX SCORE 

ROYL: 3-2: 5
WRDN: 1-1: 2 

ROYAL ROSTER:  

Name, Jersey   

Reinaldo Perez, GK
Armando Rojas, GK
Carlos Villafana, 2
Adrian Padilla, 3
Scout Stevenson, 4
Anderson Brown, 5
Jose Leyva, 6
Elmer Gonzalez, 7
Brian Amado, 8
Dannis Ramos, 9
Ernesto Deras, 11
Cristian Nieto, 12
Brayan Miron, 16
Diego Hernandez, 17
Carlos Barajas, 18
Jose Orozco, 19
Bade Jensen, 20
Luis Rodriguez, 21
Shea Stevenson, 23
Jeonatan Dircio, 26 

WARDEN ROSTER: 

Name, Jersey 

Tavo Canales, 0
Brayan Chavez Garcia, 1
Jose Mejia, 2
Alonzo Becerra, 4
Adrian Dominguez, 5
Raylen Heredia, 6
Daniel Delacruz, 8
Byron Herrera, 9
Jose Perez, 10
Joshua Morales, 11
Erick Camacho, 12
Bryan Zaragoza, 15
Hunter Golladay, 16
Ismael Alcantar, 17
Alfredo Mora, 18
Dany Pimentel Jauregui Pimentel, 24 

    Anderson Brown from the Knights tracks the ball as it was passed to him from his teammate and makes a deep push into the Cougars side of the field.
  

    Cougars senior Brayan Chavez Garcia (1) takes the ball across the field with senior teammate Jose Mejia (2) following behind.
  

    The two number six players on their teams, Royal sophomore Jose Leyva and Warden junior Raylen Heredia race along the sideline for possession of the ball.
  

    Knights senior Ernesto Deras prepares to kick the ball back into play during Tuesday’s game against the Cougars.
  

    Scout Stevenson, a sophomore from the Knights, races toward the ball after Hunter Golladay, a senior from the Cougars, gained possession.