Susan Harman

Your Prep Sports

MARION – You’ve made it to the Class 2A regional final with a couple nice victories and who do you face?

Top-ranked, undefeated, tournament veteran Cascade with its eyes squarely on a gold trophy in Des Moines.

The Regina girls basketball team never flinched.

The Regals didn’t win, falling 47-36 at Linn-Mar high school, but they were competitive to the point where if a couple shots had fallen at the right time it might have been really interesting.

“We’ve had low-scoring games all year,” Regina coach Mary Halvorsen said. “Even when we’ve won they’ve been low scoring. I told the kids ‘just keep shooting the ball,’ and we hit some big ones too. We never felt truly out of it.

They were up a bit, but then you start being aggressive and good things happen.

“They played their hearts out, and I’m just super proud of them.”

Regina lost to Cascade 49-19 on Jan. 7, but Regina’s players said they took heart from Clear Creek Amana’s upset of then-No. 2 Marion the night before in a 4A regional final.

“(We wanted to) have fun,” senior Claire Gaarde said. “You have nothing to lose, so you might as well enjoy every moment.”

“I feel like we really prepared well for it,” senior post Sam Greving said. “We knew we could stick with them. Our first game was a little rough, but we knew if we picked it up and shot more and looked inside and just stepped up our game we could play with them.”

Cascade (25-0) put the game away in the early stages of the fourth quarter.

Leading 37-24 to begin the fourth, the Cougars scored the first eight points, while the Regals went nine scoreless possessions, missing six shots and committing three turnovers.

But even at that, the Regals (16-8) rallied to score 12 consecutive points before Jordan Simon’s layup ended the scoring for the Cougars.

The 11-point final margin equaled the smallest margin of victory in any Cascade game this year.

Scoring was difficult for Regina.

The Regals made 13-of-35 shots (.371) against the constantly moving Cougar zone, and that won’t win many games. Gaarde led the Regals with 10 points, and sister Grace had nine.

But the Regals’ zone defense was hard to crack for the Cougars as well. While Cascade shot well enough, making 20-of-33 shots, it turned the ball over 19 times.

 “Just keep playing hard,” Gaarde said of the team’s approach to forcing mistakes.

 “We put pressure on them,” Greving said. “I feel like throughout this whole season we’ve been a really good defensive team and really good at scouting teams.”

Cascade’s leading scorer, Nicole McDermott (16.6 ppg), was held to nine points and wasn’t really a factor, but senior Abigail Welter scored 19, nine more than her average.

 “They are so tough to guard,” Halvorsen said. “I mean, there are five guards. That’s a load for any team. That’s why they are as good as they are. But we’ve held teams under their averages all year long. Even tonight. (Cascade averages 59.7 ppg) But how do you hold all five down?”

Regina loses four seniors, Elly Gahan, Stephanie Stenger, Claire Gaarde and Greving.

 “No one expected us to get this far considering who we lost, but I think as a team we were able to come together and focus on everyone’s strengths no matter what it is and come together and grow so much,” Greving said.

 “They battled night in and night out,” Halvorsen said. “And from day one we grew so much. Most importantly we grew up as a team. As a first-year coach I want the culture to grow and the confidence to grow. You can never doubt their effort and their heart, and that showed tonight.”

Regina              7    4   13  12  –  36

Cascade          10  12  15  10  –  47

Regina (36) – Elly Gahan 1-3 0-0 2, Annie Gahan 3-9 0-0 7, Grace Gaarde 3-7 0-0 9, Claire Gaarde 4-7 1-1 10, Sam Greving 1-6 4-4 6, Abby Clark 0-0 0-0 0, Totals 13-35 5-5.

Cascade (47) – Nicole McDermott 4-6, 1-2 9, Ally Hoffman 1-3 2-2 4, Skylar Dolphin 1-4 1-2 4, Jordan Simon 4-5 0-0 9, Abigail Welter 9-13 0-1 19, Alyssa Lux 1-1 0-0 2, Faith Bower 0-1 0-0 0, Totals 20-33 4-7.

3-point goals – Regina 5-20 (Annie Gahan 1-6, Grace Gaarde 3-7, Claire Gaarde 1-4, Stephanie Stenger 0-3), Cascade 3-11 (McDermott 0-1, Hoffman 0-2, Dolphin 1-4, Simon 1-1, Weltor 1-2, Bower 0-1). Total fouls – Regina 8, Cascade 6.

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