TOUGH START-Royal's Marcus Hunt tries to get by a Chaminade defender during last Friday's game at Chaminade High School. In its regular-season opener, Royal was defeated 26-11. Coaches often say they find out at the first game of the year how far the team has come since training camp. If that's the case, Royal High's offensive line still has a long way to go.

The Highlanders for years have been known as a hard-nosed running team. With RHS losing Curtis Marsh and most of its starting offensive line to graduation last year, its running game has slowed to a crawl at the start of the season.

Last week, Royal opened up the season by losing at Chaminade 2611.

With an inexperienced line still in the learning process, the Highlanders weren't able to do much on the ground.

Marcus Hunt ran for 68 yards on 10 carries but most of those yards came on one run. Dylenn Ramirez ran for 39 yards on seven rushes and Kevin Redmond could only muster negative two yards on eight carries.

"The game against Chaminade was a reality check in that we learned we still have a long way to go with a young offensive line," Royal head coach Gene Uebelhardt said. "Unfortunately, we are a public school and can't go out and recruit every year, so some years we are going to have a lot of young players at a position like we do on the offensive line."

This week Royal will look to rebound against Hueneme, who has started out 0-2, by losing to Santa Clara 27-21 and last week to Santa Monica 49-21. With Hueneme already giving up 76 points on the year, this might be the best game for Royal's offense to make big improvements.

"Obviously it's easier to pass block than run block, so we may have to pass the ball more," Uebelhardt said. "But we want to get our running game going and if we see a hole in their defense we are going to use that to our advantage."

On the defensive side of the ball, Royal will have to communicate better if it wants to stop Hueneme. Numerous times during its game against Chaminade, there were blown assignments causing Royal to give up the easy touchdown.

With Hueneme having a good quarterback in Josh Riley (9-of-19, 176 yards and two touchdowns against Santa Clara) and a quality wide receiver in Travis Nixon (five receptions for 126 yards and two touchdowns against Santa Clara), those broken coverages will have to be minimal.

"In our last game we gave up three touchdowns where after the play, two of our defensive backs were looking at each other wondering what happened," Uebelhardt said.

"When that happens you know somebody missed an assignment. We have had winning seasons the last two years including a league championship two years ago, and the players that were on those teams were very embarrassed about our game last week," he said.

Uebelhardt said the team has picked it up in practice this week and is eager to play Friday and get back to a .500 record. The faster the Highlanders offensive line can learn how to play at a quality level, the sooner Royal will get their first win this season.

"The thing about an offensive line is that a good one will make an average running back look great," Uebelhardt said. "A bad offensive line will make a great running back look poor. I'm hoping they can learn fast because I think Hunt and Redmond can really contribute for us if they do."

The two teams have never played each other and Uebelhardt said the most important thing about the game is that the Highlanders show improvement.

"If you get the best out of your players then the wins and losses will speak for themselves," Uebelhardt said. "We may not win this game, but we will improve. That's for sure."