Ryan Murken
Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – Two postseason wins down for the Regina volleyball team.

One big one to go.

Regina recorded its second postseason sweep in three days on Thursday dispatching Van Buren 25-15, 25-14, 25-18 in the Class 2A, Region 8 title game.

The big one for No. 11 Regina (27-8) comes on Tuesday in the form of a rematch with No. 12 Wilton (34-5) in the Region 8 title match at 7 p.m. at West Liberty.

“We’ve been approaching it a game at a time and just focusing on the here and now and once that’s done we go to the next one,” Regina coach Jordyn Akers said. “Winning the West Branch match was our main focus for four or five days, we prepped for Van Buren and now it’s Wilton but we will keep focusing on the here and now.”

Before it could focus on the playoffs the Regals had to wait.

With 11 days between its regular season finale and Tuesday’s Region 8 quarterfinal with West Branch there was plenty of time for Regina to collect rust.

Instead the Regals have been mostly clean in a pair of impressive sweeps.

Regina followed up Tuesday’s sweep of West Branch with an even more impressive win over 20-win Van Buren.

The Regals had four players with more than five kills and held a 43-19 advantage in kills on Thursday while winning for the seventh time in their last eight matches.

“We have really focused in practice,” Regina junior Alex Wiese said. “We kind of hit a lull when we didn’t play for a while so just coming out of that has been our biggest thing and we’ve done a good job of that.”

Wiese and fellow junior Jaedynn Evans did their usual damage at the net on Thursday but Regina got contributions from across it’s attack.

The 6-foot-1 Wiese had a match-high 15 kills and Evans added 12 while junior Ellie VanLandschoot had seven and Katrina Chambliss added five.

“I felt like we played really well,” VanLandschoot said. “We had a few ups and downs but I thought overall we had a really good team win.”

Regina trailed 10-7 in the opening set but used a 7-0 run to take control and never gave up the momentum.

Wiese had three kills during the 7-0 spurt that helped Regina score 18 of the final 23 points in the opening set.

“We were just being louder on the court and being more intense,” Wiese said. “I thought we brought up the intensity.”

Regina cruised the rest of the way.

The Regals got four kills each from Wiese and Evans in a 25-14 win in the second set and VanLandschoot had three of her seven kills in a 25-18 win in the third.

“I think we just started off a little slow but once we got into it we played really well,” VanLandschoot said. “We got our hitters going.”

Regina will shift its full focus to a Halloween night rematch with River Valley Conference rival Wilton.

Wilton defeated Mediapolis 25-15, 25-17, 25-12 in the other Region 8 semifinal on Thursday.

The Regals won the regular season meeting in five sets in Wilton on Sept. 19.

“The whole game was really intense so we know it’s going to be a really close match,” Wiese said. “As long as we keep playing like we know we can we will be fine.”

Regina            25  25  25

Van Buren      15  14  18

(Kills-aces-blocks)

Regina

Alex Wiese 15-1-0, Emily Bonnett 0-1-0, Megan Wick 0-0-2, Ellie VanLandschoot 7-0-0, Alexa Lehman 3-2-0, Clare Dunne 0-1-0, Jaedynn Evans 12-0-2, Katrina Chambliss 5-0-0, Katie Dunn 1-0-0, Team 43-5-4.

Assists – Emily Bonnett 38, Jaedynn Evans 1, Alex Wiese 1.

Van Buren

Salena Sayre 6-1-0, Chloe Davidson 4-0-0, Grace Davidson 1-0-0, Taryn Scheuermann 4-0-0, Logan Schmitt 0-2-0, Hannah Hudson 4-0-0, Team 19-3-0.

Assists – Logan Schmitt 11, Madison Bartholomew 1.