Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – Regina didn’t set any scoring records or put up gaudy numbers against River Valley Conference rival Tipton on Thursday.

That doesn’t mean the Regals didn’t get the offensive breakthrough they were looking for.

Regina snapped a two-game losing skid in which it produced a total of 39 points with a 47-26 win over the Tigers in a RVC South Division contest moved up a day due to an impending winter storm.

“We just needed to see the ball go through the hoop,” Regina coach Mary Halvorsen said. “Literally we just needed to see some shots go in.”

After shooting 24 percent and putting up season-low scoring outputs of 19 and 20 points in back-to-back losses to top-ranked Cascade and No. 6 West Branch Thursday felt like an offensive explosion for the Regals.

Annie Gahan had a game-high 16 points and Sam Greving added 12 as Regina (7-3, 7-3 RVC) broke the 40-point mark for the first time in four tries in January.  

“It feels really good especially after the past few games that we’ve had,” Greving said. “It’s nice to see the ball go in the basket.”

For eight minutes on Thursday it appeared Regina was in for yet another rough night offensively.

Regina made just two if its first 13 field goal attempts to open the game and led 5-2 after the opening quarter.

It was the seventh consecutive quarter dating back to the loss to Cascade in which Regina had failed to score more than six points.

“It was just slowing down and taking a breath and really getting the ball inside and getting better looks in our shots aren’t falling,” Gahan said. “We kind of settled down.”

Regina turned things around quickly in the second quarter hitting six consecutive shots to open the quarter.

The Regals finished 7-of-8 from the field in the second quarter while outscoring Tipton 17-0 to match their highest scoring quarter since Dec. 17.

“Coming off of those two games only scoring 20 points we just wanted to come out and run our offense and get good shots,” Gahan said. “We wanted to get the ball inside and try to get some easier shots.”

Gahan scored nine of her game-high 16 points in the second quarter while hitting all three of her field goal attempts.

The junior put Regina up 12-2 with a 3-pointer with 5:21 left in the first half.

Regina shot 40 percent from the field on Thursday with a pair of 3-pointers after going 3-of-29 from beyond the arc in its previous two games combined.

“It’s hard against great teams like Cascade and West Branch when our shots weren’t falling,” Gahan said. “To have some shots fall tonight was a great feeling.”

While the Regina offense was getting going it was the effort on the defensive end that helped the Regals take control.

Regina held Tipton scoreless for the final 14:33 of the opening half while outscoring the Tigers 19-0 during that span.

“I think defensively we turned it up a little more and there were just some mismatches out there that we saw,” Halversen said. “Just being able to get the ball inside and get things moving which worked.”

Tipton scored on its first possession of the game when Rachel Bierman converted a layup with 6:33 left in the opening quarter.

The Tigers wouldn’t score again until Alex Hoffman made a basket while being fouled with 7:09 left in the third quarter.

By that point Regina led 24-2.

“Working on defense is really important for us because we knew our shots would eventually fall,” Gahan said. “We have to have good defense to hold us in those games where we don’t score as much and we’ve been able to do that.”

After its shaky offensive start Regina made 13-of-23 field goal attempts and committed just two turnovers in the second and third quarters combined while putting the game away.

Greving scored 10 of her 12 points after halftime as Regina shot 50 percent over the final 24 minutes.

“It feels really nice to be able to see the offensive working,” Greving said. “Throughout the season we probably haven’t been shooting as well as we should be and we’ve been working on that as a team and tonight it started to show. People were shooting with more confidence.”

Lily Simpson added eight points and nine rebounds as Regina held a 35-20 rebounding edge that included 20 offensive rebounds.

Greving and Steph Stenger each had six rebounds, 10 of which were on the offensive end.

“I told them to keep shooting and it would go through and we saw that and I thought we offensively rebounded a lot better than we had previously,” Halversen said. “Second-chance points and getting to the free throw line, those little things are going to culminate to bigger and better things.”

Regina                      5  17  13  12  –  47

Tipton                        2   0   13  11  –  26

Regina (47) – Steph Stenger 0-4 0-1 0, Annie Gahan 6-11 3-5 16, Abby Clark 0-0 2-2 2, Grace Gaarde 2-5 0-0 5, Claire Gaarde 1-3 0-0 2, Lilly Simpson 4-9 1-2 9, Hope Simpson 0-2 1-2 1, Alli Dillon 0-1 0-0 0, Sam Greving 6-12 0-0 12, Team 19-47 7-12 47.

Tipton (26) – Alex Hoffman 2-11 2-2 6, Hailey Stewart 1-3 0-0 2, Madison Conrad 1-1 0-0 3, Ashley Hatland 0-1 2-3 2, Rachel Bierman 4-7 0-0 8, Liz Bierman 0-1 0-2 0, Keeli Claussen 1-2 0-0 3, Brenna Wilkins 1-2 0-0 2, Allison Nash 0-0 0-1 0, Team 10-28 4-8 26.

3-point field goals – ICR 2-13 (Stenger 0-2, A. Gahan 1-4, G. Gaarde 1-3, C. Gaarde 0-2, H. Simpson 0-2), TIP 2-7 (Hoffman 0-2, Stewart 0-1, Conrad 1-1, Hatland 0-1, R. Bierman 0-1, Claussen 1-1). Rebounds – ICR 35 (L. Simpson 9), TIP 20 (Bierman 4). Turnovers – ICR 11, TIP 21. Total fouls – ICR 15, TIP 17. Fouled out – TIP (Conrad). Technical fouls – None.

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