Last night, Feb. 24, the #1 seeded Hopkins Royals beat the #8 seeded Minneapolis Southwest Lakers, with a final score of 90-50.

The win came as no surprise, as the Royals dominated the game from the tip-off. The Royals went up big before halftime, with a 43-28 lead over the Lakers. In the second half, the Royals added another 47 points.

Ishmael El-Amin, junior, led the way for the Royals with 24 points. Xavier Johnson, senior, and Anthony Davis, sophomore, added another 15 points each.

The Royals looked great on defense, holding the Lakers to only 50 points which is 19 points less than they give up on average. The Royals will hope to keep this strong defense up in their next game.

The next test for the Royals will be the Robbinsdale Armstrong Falcons, who were 14-12 during the regular season. Robbinsdale Armstrong is coming off a 89-65 victory over St. Louis Park. The Falcons showed that they can score in the win, putting up 28.5 more points than their season average of 60.5.

The Falcons have had an inconsistent season beating teams that include both Robbinsdale Cooper and Park Center, but losing to teams such as Blaine and Spring Lake Park.

On the other side of the bracket #3 seeded Robbinsdale Cooper will play #2 seeded Wayzata. The winners of both the Hopkins-Armstrong and Cooper-Wayzata game will face each other Wednesday March 2nd at 7pm at Osseo high school.