Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

DES MOINES – Most of the players for Regina were making their state tournament debut when the Regals kicked off their 13^th consecutive appearance at the state soccer tournament on Tuesday.

The players may have been new but the state tournament result remained the same for the Regals.

Kalaeb Wendy and Levi Quinlan each scored their first career state tournament goals as third-ranked Regina returned to the state semifinals for the fifth consecutive season with a 3-0 win over No. 12 Greene County (14-7) in a Class 1A quarterfinal at Cownie Soccer Complex in Des Moines.

“We have a really, really young team with a lot of freshmen and sophomores and none of them know what this is like, I didn’t know what this is like, Alec knows what it’s like but he’s about the only one,” Quinlan said. “Now we know.”

Three-year starter Wick joined Wendy and Quinlan in finding the net on Tuesday as three-time defending 1A champion Regina improved to 13-1 all-time in state quarterfinals.

Regina (12-7) will face top-ranked Burlington Notre Dame (21-1) in the 1A semifinals on Thursday at Noon.

Burlington Notre Dame defeated seventh-ranked Waterloo Columbus 4-1 in a quarterfinal on Tuesday.

“Our defense came up with a clean sheet and that’s what we needed and most of them are young guys the whole back half of our defense is young guys,” Wick said. “Kalaeb stepping up and putting one in, Levi putting one in, it helps a lot to have them step up.”

Wendy wasted little time getting Regina on the scoreboard in his state tournament debut.

The freshman forward worked a give and go with Wick that resulted in a goal less than six minutes into the match as Regina seized the momentum early.

“That really developed our confidence,” Wendy said. “We played our game and we got more after that.”

Wendy played a ball to Wick inside the box and took the return pass and scored from point blank range for an early advantage.

“We worked on that before this game, we studied them for three or four days and we were just working on one twos,” Wendy said. “It worked out.”

Quinlan gave Regina a 2-0 halftime lead with his eighth goal of the season in the 33^rd minute.

The senior nearly got on the board a few minutes early but had a rocket from the top of the box bounce wide off the post.

Less than two minutes later Quinlan converted from point blank range to put Regina up 2-0 with 7:17 left in the opening half.

“We all connected passes really well,” Quinlan said. “We talked really well and for it being really hot and we were all really tired but we played through all of it.”

Wick followed a similar pattern to make it 3-0 early in the second half.

The senior leading scorer made a run off the second-half kick off and nearly scored less than 10 seconds into the match but had his shot from inside the box saved by Greene County keeper Gabe Ebersole.

Instead, Wick scored 40 seconds later when he slotted in a shot from the left side of the goal for his team-leading 30^th goal of the season.

Meanwhile the Regina defense didn’t give up much to a Greene County attack that had scored multiple goals in four of its previous five games.

“We just talk about focusing on one touch and if they can keep their one touch under them and pass the ball in two or three touches that’s all we need them to do,” Wick said. “Defensively they kept them out of the goal and that’s what we wanted.”

The shutout was the fourth of the season for Regina and first since the Regals blanked Greene County 1-0 on May 8.

“The thing I was pleased with is we have struggled all year to maintain the focus,” Regina coach Rick Larew said. “It’s not just the youth, it’s the mental focus, the mental intensity. You don’t get here by luck and once you get here it requires that focus and attention all the way through and we’ve struggled to main that focus through entire games but I think today we overcame that youth through our focus.”

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