{"id":22768,"date":"2022-05-25T15:27:11","date_gmt":"2022-05-25T19:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=22768"},"modified":"2022-05-25T15:27:17","modified_gmt":"2022-05-25T19:27:17","slug":"lakeland-royals-go-on-the-road-to-battle-the-orlando-blazers-in-the-first-back-to-back-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2022\/05\/25\/lakeland-royals-go-on-the-road-to-battle-the-orlando-blazers-in-the-first-back-to-back-games\/","title":{"rendered":"LAKELAND ROYALS GO ON THE ROAD TO BATTLE THE ORLANDO BLAZERS IN THE FIRST BACK TO BACK GAMES"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Royals went to Orlando to play their first back to back game of the season. There was concern after the hard fought game on Saturday and with temperatures in the Royals Gym getting very warm, how the team would be able to respond for this early 4 PM start on Sunday.   The Head Coach for the Royals, David Thornton, was confident the conditioning of the team was solid and that they would be able to play well against a very difficult Blazers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Blazers had a height advantage going into the game with two 6\u20199\u201d players and they were well rested, which would prove to be a problem for the Royals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the game started the usual Royals quick start never materialized.  Instead it was the Blazers that had the quick start jumping out to a 16 to 5 advantage.  The Blazers came ready to play and the Royals seemed sluggish and tired at the start of the game.  But the resilience of the Royals was evident as they put together some runs of their own to keep the game from getting out of reach.  However, the Blazers went on another run and at the end of the first quarter the Royals were in the unfamiliar position of being down as they only scored 19 points in the first quarter.  The score was 19 – 27 Blazers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Second quarter had the Royals coming to life as they battled to remain the only undefeated FBA team.  They showed some sparks of brilliance throughout the game but the size and the freshness of the Blazers was evident as it took a toll on the Royals players.  However, the Royals began to play very hard and outscored the Blazers 27 to 20 in the second quarter.  At the half the score was 46 to 47 Blazers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Second half started with both teams running the ball and playing very good defense.  Both teams felt the pressure and one of the Blazers big men was ejected from the game with just under one minute to play in the third quarter. The Blazers outscored the Royals 28 to 24 in the third quarter.  At the end of the third quarter the score was 70 to 75 Blazers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fourth quarter brought more intense basketball but the ware of back to back games was seen on the Royals as several players cramped up during the fourth quarter.  However, the Royals would not give up.  With four minutes left in the game the Royals seemed all but defeated as the Blazers had a 14 point lead.  But never count the Royals out!  They battled back and went on an amazing run and kept the Blazers from scoring for three minutes and came with three points with under a minute left.  The Blazers had the ball with a three point lead and less than 25 seconds on the clock.  As the Blazers brought the ball up the Royals managed to get a steal and Smith put up a three point shot with 12 seconds left.  However, he missed the shot and the Blazers rebounded.  After a quick foul and two made free throws the Blazers were up by five with only  10 seconds left in the game. The Royals called timeout and then the Royals inbounded the ball and a quick three point shot from the corner was dead on and the Royals were within two.  However, the clock ran out before the Royals could get a foul and the game ended with a score of 94 to 96 Blazers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the first time all season the Royals have been held to under 100 points.  The Royals have outclassed every opponent they have played until now.  The Blazers were tough and big.  The Blazers defense was intense and the Royals had difficulty adjusting to the team for the first quarter and a half.  However, the Royals never gave up.  In the end the fatigue seemed to be a deciding factor and the Royals just could not get over the hump to get the lead.   They came close several times but the Blazers stopped them with great defense and excellent shooting.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Royals have now lost their first game.  Now the job of Coach Thornton is the pick them up and get them ready to play another very good team.   The Royals will look to get back on the winning side on June 4th at 7 PM at Kathleen High School when the Orlando Flight come to town.   The Flight, are one of the original FBA teams and a former league champion, and will be very tough! Coach Thornton says the team will be ready to get back on the winning side.  The Royals will have another back to back weekend playing a 9 AM Sunday Game on June 5th against the Winter Park Storm.  Their conditioning is certain to be challenged. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lakeland residents are encouraged to come out and enjoy some exciting basketball and cheer on YOUR Lakeland Royals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Royals went to Orlando to play their first back to back game of the season. There was concern after the hard fought game on Saturday and with temperatures in… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22771,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[1598],"tags":[2904],"class_list":["post-22768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lakeland-royals","tag-lakeland-royals-go-on-the-road"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}