Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – Mia DePrenger has a promising collegiate soccer career to look forward to beginning next fall at Minnesota State.

DePrenger isn’t ready to end her high school playing days just yet.

“I don’t want to be done yet,” DePrenger said on Tuesday. “It means a lot to all of us especially our seniors to keep playing. I want to keep playing with these girls that I’ve been playing with since we were really young.”

With some help from a few of her younger teammates DePrenger and her classmates kept their prep careers alive for at least a few more days on Tuesday.

Class 3A No. 11 City High scored six unanswered goals in a 6-1 win over No. 15 Cedar Rapids Kennedy in a 3A, Region 6 semifinal at City High.

Sophomore Kelsey Dilanni scored twice and fellow sophomores Nahomi Andino Izaguirre and Kaitlyn Brown each added a goal along with DePrenger as City High (12-3) moved a win away from a trip to the 3A state tournament.

“It’s a season-ender game and especially for our seniors I didn’t want their season to be over, they are really loved on this team,” Dilanni said. “We knew we could battle back and we were determined to win.”

Dilanni and DePrenger scored goals in a span of just more than four minutes in the first half and City High dominated the final 40 minutes while pushing its winning streak to eight.

City High has outscored opponents 36-3 during its current winning streak and will face fourth-ranked Waukee Northwest (15-2) in the Region 6 title game on Thursday at 6 p.m. in Waukee.

“At the beginning of the season we struggled to play together and as we started building up together and knowing each other more and communicating better everything has come together,” Dilanni said. “We have great leaders on this team.”

Winners of five of its last six games entering Tuesday’s regional semifinal Cedar Rapids Kennedy (10-6) took an early lead when Cassie White scored on a breakaway just more than seven minutes into the match.

City High wasted little time answering as Dilanni ripped a shot from 25 yards out off the hands of Kennedy keeper Megan Felderman and inside the right post just more than six minutes later.

“Honestly we get yelled at as midfielders to shoot all the time,” Dilanni said. “I just tried to put it on frame and find a corner and I did it.”

The goal by Dilanni stopped the early Kennedy momentum and started a string of six unanswered goals for City High.

“It’s definitely important to answer back right away,” City High coach Corbin Schulz said. “I do think that with this team a lot of things can get into their head really quickly so we want to keep it positive and that was important for them to continue to trust themselves.”

A little more than four minutes later DePrenger gave City High a lead it would never give up with her third goal of the season.

“I think it was good that we were able to come back right away,” DePrenger said. “That allowed us to stay more composed.”

City High led 2-1 at halftime but put things away early in the second half.

Andino Izaguirre scored off a Morgan Turner assist less than six minutes into the half and junior Mya Witt made it 4-1 when she scored on a penalty kick with 23:40 left.

Brown scored with 8:33 left and Dilanni capped the scoring with her second goal of the match with 4:46 left.

“I wasn’t really concerned when we got down just because I knew that they had good players and they were going to be able to capitalize off something,” DePrenger said. “Seeing the way that we matched up with them in the front line and the back line I knew we would get more chances.”

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