Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – Regina wanted to secure district title and lock up a home playoff game in its regular season finale.

The Regals had to settle for a win, a perfect home record and being a team no one wants to see in the postseason.

Seventh-ranked Regina (7-1, 4-1) closed the regular season with a 20-8 win over fourth-ranked Wilton (7-1, 4-1) on Friday in a Class 1A, District 5 showdown at Regal Field.

Regina, Wilton and Dyersville Beckman (6-2) all finished 4-1 in district play.

By virtue of the tiebreaker point system Regina needed a 17-point win on Friday to earn the top spot and home playoff game.

Instead the Regals are the third seed in district 5 and will hit the road for a playoff opener next Friday.

Playoff pairings will be released by the Iowa High School Athletic Association on Saturday at 10 a.m.

“My message to the kids was any other team in the state should be afraid to play us,” Regina coach Dustin Elsbury said. “We are gaining confidence, no matter if we are the one, two or three seed or the four seed everybody is 0-0 now and anything can happen in the playoffs.”

Regina didn’t get everything it wanted on Friday but the Regals head into the postseason on a high note.

Kyle Tracy rushed for a touchdown and threw a touchdown pass on Friday as Regina snapped a seven-game winning streak for Wilton and bounced back from a 28-15 loss at Dyersville Beckman last week.

The win also completed an unbeaten home slate for the Regals who went 4-0 on their home field and have won 14 consecutive home games dating back to 2022.

“It means a lot,” Regina senior Will Aitchison said. “Our number one goal this year was to protect the home turf. We accomplished that goal and it doesn’t matter if it’s a one, two or three seed we are excited and we are 0-0 now and we are excited to keep playing.”

Regina trailed 2-0 after a snap through the end zone on a punt resulted in a safety with 6:39 remaining in the first quarter.

The Regals took the lead a little more than two minutes later when sophomore tailback Savion Miller raced 80 yards for a touchdown.

“Savion is elusive, he’s a tough, smart, physical football player,” Elsbury said. “He’s kind of been banged up the past couple of weeks and we were finally able to get his legs back under him a little bit and get him healthy and you saw that tonight he was running with a little bit more burst.”

Regina led 7-2 at the half but Wilton regained the lead when senior running back Owen Hassell capped a 70-yard drive with a two-yard touchdown run with 7:56 left in the third quarter.

The Regals once again responded.

“It was tough. Coming out of halftime they had a lot of energy,” Aitchison said. “I just give credit to the guys, we wanted it.”

Regina retook the lead on its next possession as Tracy scored on a 9-yard touchdown run.

The key play on the scoring drive was a successful fake punt in which freshman Gabriel Hegelheimer found Tate Wallace for the first down.

“They gave us the look defensively that we were preparing for all week,” Elsbury said. “The down and distance made sense and that was a heck of a throw by Gabe being patient until he got open and throwing it down there.”

The 9-yard touchdown run by Tracy put Regina up 14-8 with 4:43 remaining in the third quarter and gave the Regals the momentum.

“We just wanted it more,” Regina senior Noah Clark said. “They had a good drive against us and we came back and we drove it down and scored and that was huge.”

Tracy made it 20-8 with a 4-yard scoring strike to Aitchison with 10:42 remaining.

The Regina defense did the rest holding Wilton scoreless over the final quarter and a half, stopping the Beavers on downs inside the 10 in the fourth quarter.

“Our coaching staff is amazing, they set us up for greatness and our guys executed exactly how we were supposed to do it,” Clark said. “We were fitting everything up, our coverage was great, everything was perfect.”

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