LAYTON — Senior Roy High soccer players Corben Schuffenhauer and David Rangel were members of the team that won the Region 2 championship last year.

A road win at Northridge on Tuesday guaranteed the Royals a share of the Region 5 title this year (tied with Box Elder) and a good launching pad into the 5A state playoffs.

Schuffenhauer and Rangel helped lead the way to this year’s crown, scoring two goals each as the Royals swept the season series over the Knights with a 5-2 triumph.

“We started off wanting to score as many goals as needed because we wanted to win and go back-to-back … really motivated this year,” Rangel said.

He got the Royals (11-3, 11-3 Region 5) off on the right foot with a goal just 1 1/2 minutes into the match Tuesday.

“We’ve been practicing passing. Boston (Risk) found me on a little dribble and I put it in front post,” Rangel said. “It built momentum; as soon as we got the first one, we knew we could score more. It’s important, especially for our seniors to end up on a good note.”

Schuffenhauer scored his first goal in the 17th minute, from another Risk assist, and the Royals led 2-0 at the half.

“There was a cross to the middle and I turned and hit it,” Schuffenhauer said. “It bounced off of a kid … got a little bit lucky, but I found the back of the net, so it was all good.”

The Royals kept the pressure out of the break when Schuffenhauer got his brace with his second goal in the 47th minute.

“Keep it up; keep controlling the ball. Keep playing our game; don’t let off the gas,” Schuffenhauer said. “It bounded over the kid. I think there was a miscommunication and I got my head on it and put it over the keep, so pretty cool.”

Roy continued to build its lead when Rangel got his second score seven minutes later, and the lead ballooned to 4-0.

Tyson Johansen closed out the Roy attack at 5-0 with 19:45 to play.

“You can’t play scared. We still wanted to play to win. If you play not to lose, that’s usually when problems occur,” Schuffenhauer said. “Those goals can come in handy late in the game when the other team puts them in.”

That happened when the Knights (3-11) scored two goals in the final 12 minutes, closing the gap to the 5-2 margin when Kai Rader and Luke Pearce found the net.

“Stuff like that happens. Northridge is a good team. I don’t know if we were ready, but they were good plays, good hard shots from out here; not much you can do about that,” Schuffenhauer said.

Brackets for the 5A tournament will be announced Wednesday morning and the Royals will most likely have a first-round bye and play May 14 at home in the second round, provided they are seeded in the top eight of the 24-team bracket.

“(Winning) region is definitely a good feeling. We’d obviously like to win it outright, but it’s better than nothing,” Schuffenhauer said. “We’ll take it and hopefully we can make a nice run in the state playoffs.”

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