Douglas Miles

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – Regina knew it faced a stiff test in Braden Hartley.

The 6-foot-3, 195-pound bruising tailback for Mid-Prairie entered Friday night’s non-district prep football game ranked second in Class 2A with 417 rushing yards.

And while Hartley did some early damage, the Regals took advantage of a limited Mid-Prairie passing attack and turned the Golden Hawks away with regularity.

“A lot of it is just trying to play good, fundamental football,” second-year Regina coach Jason Dumont said after Regina stifled Mid-Prairie, 35-7, at Regal Field. “You have got to be careful. You can’t blitz a team like that a whole heck of a lot. You might hit one in the head, you might hit the second one in the head, but the next one is out of the gate. When you play teams like Mid-Prairie, they are tough, physical kids.”

Mid-Prairie possessed the ball four times in the first half, and while Hartley gained 77 yards via a whopping 17 first-half carries, the Golden Hawks’ drives ended with a turnover on downs, a punt and Regina interceptions from Steven Liu and Jackson Naeve.

“I felt like coach did a great game plan for us in practice,” Liu said. “We watched film and repped it out all practice. We knew it was coming and we play hard.”

Naeve’s theft was particularly-damaging to the Mid-Prairie effort as it came in the end zone with 20 seconds left in the half and the Golden Hawks attempting to cut a 14-0 deficit in half.

“We watched a lot of film,” Naeve said. “We knew on the goal line, they needed to make some big plays. I thought they were going to go fade and I just made a play on the ball.”

Naeve and Liu also got the scoring started for Regina (2-1) in the first half.

Naeve hauled in a 40-yard touchdown pass from junior quarterback Gentry Dumont with 6:39 left in the first quarter, while Liu corralled his own 40-yard touchdown toss from Dumont four minutes into the second frame.

“I was looking back for the guy, but I turned around and he wasn’t there,” Liu said. “I ran up and just got a touchdown.”

Regina senior Jack Tierney ran for a team-high 77 yards, including a 38-yard touchdown run from the quarterback position that extended the Regals’ lead to 21-0 midway through the third quarter.

Tierney later added a three-yard scoring toss to Naeve and also intercepted a pass on defense.

“It’s tremendous for confidence,” said Naeve, who led the Regals with four receptions for 57 yards. “We needed it. We needed a good, tough opponent to play against to see where we were at. It showed pretty well. We are right where we want to be.”

Senior Collin Miller and Cain Brown each recorded interceptions for Mid-Prairie (2-1), which managed 158 rushing yards on offense, but just 31 through the air.

Hartley ran for 93 yards and a score for the Golden Hawks, which received five votes in the latest Associated Press Class 2A rankings and will open district play Friday at Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont.

“When they have those four people up front and the backers pushing up, it puts more pressure than our offensive line can really handle,” Hartley said. “Our offensive line still did phenomenal and we found little seams and we were able to run the ball a little bit. They are just a tough team.”

Gentry Dumont passed for 154 yards, senior Ronan Poynton added a late touchdown and junior Ty Joss closed the game with the fourth interception for Regina (2-1), which also opens district play next week with a road tilt at Mediapolis.

“Ultimately at the end of the day, for us to make a long run, we are going to have be able to throw the ball and we are going to have to be able to run the football,” Jason Dumont said. “I think we took some strides in that tonight.”

                                        MP                  ICR

First Downs                 12                    10

Rushes-yards             43-158             32-126

Comp-Att-Int              5-22-4             11-20-3

Passing yards              31                    157

Total yards                   189                  283

Punts-Avg.                    3-33.6              0-0.0

Fumbles-lost                2-0                   1-0

Penalties-yards           7-55                 4-45

Mid-Prairie   0  0  7   0   –  7

Regina            7  7  7  14  – 35

ICR – Jackson Naeve 40 pass from Gentry Dumont (Evan Lacina kick)

ICR – Steven Liu 40 pass from Gentry Dumont (Evan Lacina kick)

ICR – Jack Tierney 38 run (Evan Lacina kick)

MP – Braden Hartley 2 run (Cain Brown kick)

ICR – Jackson Naeve 3 pass from Jack Tierney (Evan Lacina kick)

ICR – Ronan Poynton 4 run (Evan Lacina kick)

Individual Statistics

RUSHING – M-P: Braden Hartley 20-93, Collin Miller 12-27, Lukin Rediger 4-8, Cain Brown 4-8, Landon Sullivan 3-18, Kaden Meader 0-4. ICR: Jack Tierney 14-77, Gentry Dumont 5-30, Chris Waikel 1-2, Levi Daniel 8-22, Ronan Poynton 3-13, Evan Lavina 1-(-18).

PASSING – M-P: Collin Miller 5-21-3 31, Brady Weber 0-1-1 0. ICR: Gentry Dumont 10-18-1 154, Jack Tierney 1-2-1 3.

RECEIVING – M-P: Cain Brown 5-31. ICR: Jackson Naeve 4-57, Levi Daniel 2-22, Jack Tierney 3-32, Steven Liu 1-40, William Aitchison 1-6.

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