Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

CEDAR FALLS – As the old adage says, defense wins championships.

Few teams in the state have played better defense than Regina over the past several years and no team has won more titles than the Regals in the last decade.

On Friday it was Van Meter that rode a dominating defense effort to a state championship.

Second-ranked Van Meter (13-0) held Regina to 230 total yards and forced four turnovers, claiming the first title in program history with a 28-7 win over the Regals in the Class 1A title game at the UNI-Dome in Cedar Falls.

“We are definitely playing our best defensive ball at the end of the season,” Van Meter coach Eric Trudo said. “There is no question about it and we had. All the way through the playoffs, all four opponents we faced presented different challenges so we had to come prepared and execute the game plan week in and week out.”

The loss was the second straight title game setback for Regina (10-3) which had a string of six consecutive state titles end with a 47-34 loss to Western Christian last season.

Regina had a 10-game winning streak snapped with its first loss of the season to a Class 1A opponent.

“I’m just glad that we had the ride that we did,” Regina senior Jake Phillips said. “When it comes down to two field goals getting here, we were happy to be here and have a shot at winning a state championship and hats off to Van Meter they obviously earned it.”

Carson Rhodes rushed for 125 yards and two scores and Blake Fryar threw for a pair of first-half touchdowns but Friday was all about the Bulldog defense.

Van Meter held a Regina offense that had scored at least 27 points in every game against 1A competition scoreless for the first three quarters while building a 21-0 lead.

The 230 total yards were the fewest for Regina since a week two loss to Solon and the four turnovers were a season high.

“Hats off to them they are obviously coached really well and they came out on top,” Phillips said. “As a defense they fly around and it’s hard to get open spaces when they close the gaps so quick. They closed the opportunities we had to breakout.”

Senior Isaac Vollstedt accounted for most of the Regina offense with 157 yards rushing including the Regals’ only touchdown on a 46-yard run with 11:18 left in the fourth quarter.

It was too little too late for Regina as Van Meter answered the Vollstedt touchdown run with a 9-play, 65-yard touchdown drive.

Rhodes capped the 14-yard touchdown run by Rhodes that pushed the lead back to 28-7 with 7:23 left.

“They were able to plug up the running lanes pretty good,” Vollstedt said. “We got a break on the big run but their secondary played really well and took away the pass from us.”

Regina had four touchdown plays of longer than 15 yards in a 37-35 semifinal win over Pella Christian including touchdown passes of 77 and 88 yards.

Those big plays weren’t there on Friday against a Van Meter secondary that didn’t allow more than 169 yards through the air in a game this season.

Regina only had five plays of more than nine yards on Friday, four coming on runs from Vollstedt.

“We knew they had the capability of getting big plays so we wanted to limit those or eliminate those big plays and our guys did a great job of staying over top of receivers,” Trudo said. “We did a great job of getting a lot of hats to the football and forcing those turnovers and never giving up on a play.”

Van Meter took the lead with a five-play, 94-yard drive that included a 57-yard run by Anthony Lowman and was capped by a 22-yard touchdown pass from Fryar to Sam Thompson with 1:46 left in the first quarter.

The Bulldogs turned a Regina turnover into a touchdown and a 14-0 lead in the second quarter.

Thompson made a diving interception at the Regina 35 yard line and on the next play Jack Trudo hauled in a pass that was nearly intercepted by Kieler Brown and then inadvertently kicked into the air.

Trudo hauled it in of the deflection and went five yards for a score that put Van Meter up 14-0 with 6:38 left in the first half.

“To be down 14-0 at halftime we actually felt pretty good about where we were,” Regina coach Marv Cook said. “About everything that could went wrong went wrong so to still be in a pretty good spot was good for us.”

Van Meter made it 21-0 when Rhodes scored on a 1-yard run set up by a 51-yard punt return by Lowman.

Regina got back in the game briefly when Vollstedt went 46 yards untouched up the middle for a touchdown that cut the lead to 21-7 less than a minute into the fourth quarter.

It was one of the few times Vollstedt touched the ball he wasn’t swarmed by Van Meter defenders.

“They are a really well coached team and it was really hard to shake off a tackle from them,” Vollstedt said. “You have to tip your hat off to their coaches and players.”

Regina turned it over twice on downs inside the Bulldog 26 yard line and finished 2-of-12 on third down and was unsuccessful three times on fourth down.

“They were all over the place,” Cook said. “Their ends are great pressure guys, their d-tackles are tough kids, their inside linebacker is like a rock in there and then their edge guys were phenomenal. They close spaces and they don’t give you gaps.”

The loss closed a brilliant career for the Regina senior class that compiled a 47-7 record over the past four seasons and played in four consecutive title games.

                                ICR                 VM

First Downs               13                    16

Rushes-Yards            32-179             40-241

Comp-Att-Int             10-25-3            6-11-0

Passing Yards            51                    76

Punts-Avg.                 4-38.8              5-38.2             

Fumbles-Lost             1-1                   1-0

Penalties-Yards           6-41                 5-60

Regina             0    0    0    7  –   7 

Van Meter         7    7    7    7  –  28

VM – Sam Thompson 22 pass from Blake Fryar (Sam Bardwell kick)

VM – Jack Trudo 35 pass from Fryar (Bardwell kick)

VM – Carson Rhodes 1 run (Bardwell kick)

ICR – Isaac Vollstedt 46 run (Vollstedt kick)

VM – Rhodes 14 run (Bardwell kick)

Individual Statistics

RUSHING – ICR: Isaac Vollstedt 21-157, Jake Phillips 3-11, Michael Conlon 6-8, Nick Milder 1-3, Ashton Cook 1-0. VM: Carson Rhodes 30-125, Blake Fryar 6-62, Anthony Lowman 2-58, Team 2-(-4).

PASSING – ICR: Michael Conlon 6-14-2 25, Ashton Cook 4-11-1 26. VM: Blake Fryar 6-11-0 76.

RECEIVING – ICR: Jake Phillips 4-19, Patrick Clark 2-16, Jayden Kies 2-8, Isaac Vollstedt 1-4, Scott Arndt 1-4. VM: Sam Thompson 2-23, Anthony Lowman 2-15, Jack Trudo 1-35, JJ Durflinger 1-3.