Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – Walking out of Harlan Rogers Sports Complex in Fort Dodge following a heartbreaking loss in the 2018 state title game Annie Gahan kept telling herself the same thing.

“I know we kept saying, ‘we’ll be back’,” Gahan said. “I know I thought it.”

Why wouldn’t Gahan, then a freshman starter on the Regals’ runner-up squad, figure there would be more state tournament trips on the horizon?

Regina was a full-fledged 2A state power having just played in the state title game for the fourth consecutive season.

There was every reason to believe the Regals would return.

Gahan and the Regals will make their return the state tournament on Monday but the journey back to Fort Dodge hasn’t gone exactly the way the Regina senior shortstop imagined.

“When I was growing up watching Regina make it to state and then we made it right away I figured we’d just cruise right through every year,” Gahan said. “It definitely has not been a cruise, it’s been pretty bumpy but I’m glad I get to go senior year.”

The trip back to Fort Dodge has been filled with detours, potholes and roadblocks for Gahan and the Regals.

A combined 27-32 record the past two seasons, three coaching changes in four seasons, a season shortened by a global pandemic and more than a few gut-wrenching postseason losses.

Through it all Gahan never gave up on that thought she had leaving the fields in Fort Dodge as a freshman.

“Coming into this year I was a little worried just because all of us haven’t been playing at this level until last year,” Gahan said. “I just tried to stay positive. I believed we could do it.”

Not only did Regina return to the state tournament this season the Regals did it in the most improbably way possible.

For a program that has been a part of some of the most amazing postseason games in recent history it was probably the way it had to be.

At the forefront of it all was Gahan.

“She is an amazing athlete but she is a better person, she is good inside and out and I absolutely adore her,” first-year Regina coach Angela Kessler said. “I think anybody that has ever coached Annie knows that she is just always there. She is always going to compete, she is always going to give you everything she has no matter what it is whether she is gassed or not you don’t know it because she brings energy and she is an amazing athlete but she brings the team up every time.”

When Regina rallied from a 7-5 in the seventh inning to upset third-ranked Louisa-Muscatine in the regional semifinal it was Gahan that came up with a clutch two-run double.

In a 5-4, 11-inning win over Cardinal in the regional final Gahan went 2-for-5 with a double and a run scored as Regina (19-12) overcame a late 4-1 deficit.

“Those big games that we won at the end of the year like Solon and CCA those were big confidence boosts,” Gahan said. “Getting those wins was huge and we went into the postseason believing we could win.”

Gahan has been at her best in her final prep season.

A Kirkwood Community College recruit, Gahan is hitting .383 with three home runs and 24 RBI and leads the Regals with 17 extra-base hits.

Gahan is the unquestioned leader in a Regina lineup that features six seniors.

“It means a lot having the five other seniors out here with me is so much fun,” Gahan said. “I could not be happier to do it with them, I’ve grown up playing with them.”

Just as it did when Gahan was a freshman in 2018 the Regals come to Fort Dodge as an underdog with double digit losses, sort of an after thought in a loaded 2A bracket.

That is fine with Gahan who is ready to embrace the experience she missed the past two seasons as Regina failed to qualify for state.

“What Annie also brings to the table is she has been to state before so she knows how this works,” Kessler said. “She knows that you can’t give up in the seventh, or eighth, or ninth or 10^th inning and that you still have to get the job done.”

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