Royals’ furious fourth-quarter rally comes up short

A blistering fourth-quarter rally wasn’t enough to overcome three quarters of poor shooting, as the Lynnwood boys basketball team dropped its third straight Western Conference 4A South Division game.

The Royals shot about 80 percent in the final period and cut a 21-point deficit to three points at the end but Shorewood still pulled out a 68-65 victory Jan. 10 at Shorewood High School.

Lynnwood shot about 26 percent in the first three quarters but then connected on far more of its shots and outscored the Thunderbirds 34-16 in the fourth quarter.

“It was a huge comeback,” said Royals coach Landon Porter. “Hopefully, it will snap us out of our slump.”

The shots have not been falling of late for Lynnwood, which shot about 30 percent in a 60-39 loss to Mariner Jan. 7. In their first game back from the holiday break, the Royals shot about 40 percent in a 59-43 loss to Mountlake Terrace.

“We’ve been getting the shots we’ve wanted,” Porter said. “It hasn’t been going down. The only guy who’s been shooting consistently for us has been Drew (Matzen). Everyone else has been sporadic. It’s been tough for us overall.”

Matzen is averaging 16.6 points per game this season. He scored 32 points in the losing effort against Shorewood.

“The second and third guys, those are the guys that are important to us,” Porter said.

Porter also is concerned about his team’s defensive effort.

“We’ve been giving up too many points,” he said.

The Royals played pretty good defense to start the season.

“Our guys can play basketball well when they decide to come out and have fun and play hard,” Porter said. “I’m not down about a little bit of a slump. We still have 11 games to go. There are plenty of chances to get back into this thing.”

The Royals (3-4 in the league, 3-6 overall) travel to Shorecrest for a 7:30 p.m. game tonight (Friday, Jan. 17).