No. 2 Connell puts up a fight, No. 1 Royal prevails 24-21

Updated at 1:47 p.m. Saturday

Through six weeks, the Royal High School football team had outclassed and outplayed every unit that dare line up across from it.

No one gave Connell that memo.

The Eagles had a counter for everything, scoring three touchdowns against a team that had previously allowed just three points on the season, and bending but not breaking time and time again on defense.

But in the end, the Knights proved worthy of their top ranking in the state, outlasting the Eagles for a 24-21 victory in a battle of unbeaten SCAC East foes on Friday at David Nielsen Stadium in Royal City.

“We’re definitely getting better, and now everyone in the state knows we’re for real,” said Wayne Riner, coach of the No. 2-ranked Eagles (6-1, 4-1). “We gave them a heck of a fight, but they’re just so defensively tough.”

The game was a rematch of the 2016 Class 1A state title game — which Royal won 25-10 — and all but guaranteed the Knights (7-0, 5-0) another league championship as they look to defend their back-to-back state titles. Royal also beat Connell in Week 7 last year, 28-21 in Connell.

With Connell graduating four of the most dynamic players in the SCAC — quarterback Brian Hawkins, running back Jaxs Lee, tight end Steven Kroontje and wide receiver Caleb Price — and a veteran Royal team having outscored its opponents 330-3 through the first six weeks of the season, this game seemed like it could have been more lopsided than last year’s clashes.

But the Eagles scrapped their way into a competitive game, scoring touchdowns in all three phases — on a kickoff return by Luis Ramos, a fumble return by Seer Deines and a 1-yard run by Tristen Garland — against a Royal defense that had not let an opponent into the end zone yet this season.

“It was a little tough out there,” said linebacker/running back Isaac Ellis, who led the Knights with 9 1/2 tackles, two for loss, on defense, and a 46-yard TD catch on offense. “This was our first real challenge of the season, but we responded. We play with that, get the next play, next-man-up mentality.”

Those ridiculous defensive stats being broken up meant little to legendary Royal coach Wiley Allred. The Knights are laser-focused on the big picture.

“That 330-0 thing, you guys are the ones writing and talking all about that, that’s crap to us,” Allred said. “We care about coming out and playing well, and winning these games.

“And all the respect in the world to Connell. That’s a very good team over there that we had to get past tonight.”

That being said, the Knights — who never led by more than 10 points — had some areas of weakness exposed that were previously covered up in games where they led by 40 or more at halftime.

“We really need to get better running the ball,” Allred said.

Alonso Hernandez led the Knights with 91 rushing yards and a touchdown, but he needed 21 carries to do it and the rest of the team combined to lose nine yards on the ground. It seemed like everything the offense was able to get going started with Sawyer Jenks throwing the ball, as he finished completing 14 of 25 passes for 257 yards and two touchdowns.

Unsurprisingly, his favorite target was 6-foot-3, 175-pound senior Corbin Christensen, who bounced back from a catch-less first half to finish with four grabs for 92 yards and a 64-yard touchdown reception where he leaped over two defenders to come back on an under-thrown ball.

Connell pulled within 24-21 in the fourth quarter when Tristen Garland burst through the line for a 44-yard run down to the Royal 11, then three plays later walked in from a yard out for the first — and only — touchdown the Knights defense has allowed this season, with about 4 minutes to go.

Hernandez picked up a first down with a 13-yard dash across midfield for Royal as the clock wound down past 2 minutes, but that wasn’t quite enough to clinch it. The Connell defense held strong from there, forcing a fourth-and-long with 4 seconds left. Royal lined up in punt formation, and snapped to the upback, who was downed with a fraction of a second on the clock, giving the ball back to Connell near midfield.

But Connell quarterback Austin Smith — who had completed just 4 of 12 passes for 19 yards with an interception — dislocated his shoulder earlier in the period, meaning freshman backup QB Riley Rodriguez came in for the final desperation play, an incompletion well short of the end zone.

Garland finished with a game-high 110 yards on 24 carries.

“We wanted to come out and pound the ball, because nobody had really tried that against them yet,” Riner said. “Tristen and the line did a nice job, but Royal is just so strong up front.”

Connell hosts College Place next week, then finishes the regular season at Wahluke.

Next up for Royal is a date with the Columbia Coyotes in Burbank.

This story was originally published October 13, 2017 at 11:53 PM with the headline "No. 2 Connell puts up a fight, No. 1 Royal prevails 24-21."