Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

CEDAR FALLS – The Regina offense rolled into the UNI-Dome for its Class 1A state semifinal red-hot.

A revved up running game powered third-ranked Regina in another impressive offensive performance on Friday.

Regina (12-0) racked up 289 rushing yards and finished with 411 yards of total offense in a 31-12 win over three-time defending state champion Grundy Center (11-1) at the UNI-Dome in Cedar Falls.

Senior quarterback Kyle Tracy passed for 122 yards and a touchdown and rushed for 121 yards and two touchdowns.

Junior running back Savion Miller rushed for 167 yards a touchdown as Regina surpassed 400 yards of total offense for the fourth consecutive game.

“Teams may have a two-headed monster but I feel like we have an 11-headed monster,” Tracy said. “We are able to go to whatever is working.”

Regina averaged 56.7 points and 475 total yards per game and 12.4 yards per play in its first three postseason wins.

Against one of the best defenses in Class 1A the Regals didn’t slow down on Friday.

Grundy Center entered Friday’s semifinal allowing 5.5 points per game and had given up eight touchdowns all season.

The 31 points for Regina on Friday were the most allowed by Grundy Center since Regina scored 52 against the Spartans in the 2020 Class A state title game.

“We had a really good first offensive drive, I hit Drew on that deep ball, and we went up right away and we know that they aren’t really used to being down and we wanted to keep the pressure on them with our offense,” Tracy said.  “We know they are a really good team and a really well-coached team so we knew we had to keep our foot on the gas.”

Regina wasn’t perfect offensively.

The Regals had three turnovers, five offensive penalties and allowed a safety.

Despite that the Regals became the first team to score more than 20 points on Grundy Center in a span of 63 games.

Grundy Center allowed an average of 6.2 points per game during its 50-game winning streak that ended on Friday.

The Spartans had 15 shutouts during that time and held teams to single digits in 40 of those 50 games.

“That’s an incredible team and a great program so it means a lot to beat a time like that,” Regina coach Dustin Elsbury said. “They play the right way.”

Tracy passed for 267 yards in a 49-7 quarterfinal win over Pleasantville last week.

On Friday it was the Regina run game fueled by Miller.

The 200-pound junior tailback had 114 of his 167 yards in the second half as Regina put the game away. “Whether we are running the ball like we did today or if a team, like Alburnett in week three they put a lot of people in the box and we passed all over them,” Tracy said. “It really just depends on what the defense does and we have the players and we have the coaches to be able to answer that.”

Greve caught a 37-yard touchdown pass from Tracy to start the scoring.

Tate Wallace had two receptions for 40 yards and senior Edwin Gangba had a 38-yard reception.

After scoring 14 points in the first half Regina had second-half scoring drives of 16 and 11 plays and held the ball for nearly 16 minutes in the second half.

“We got comfortable,” Greve said. “It was all of our first times being here so once we got comfortable, we had a couple of mistakes turnover wise, but everyone played their hearts out and we are so proud.”

Regina averaged 7.1 yards per play on Friday, it’s seventh consecutive game averaging better than 7 yards per offensive snap.

“I think it was just settling in a little bit,” Elsbury said. “This being our first time in the Dome for any of these guys and for me as a head coach I think we were a little nervous and it’s normal to have those nerves but after we settled in and took a deep breath you could tell we started rallying around each other.”

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