Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

SOLON – Following losses in the state semifinals in each of their first three season the seniors on the Regina soccer team didn’t need to have a long discussion to settle on the top goal for their final prep season.

“Win state,” Regina senior Laird Holden said quickly when asked the team’s top goal this season. “That’s the main goal.”

Regina looked every bit like a state title contender in its season opener.

The Regals scored five unanswered goals to break open a 1-1 tie on its way to a 6-1 win over Solon (0-1) in the season opener for both teams at Spartan Stadium on a warm and breezy afternoon on Monday.

Five different Regals scored on Monday as Regina defeated Solon for the fourth consecutive season.

“It’s definitely been the general consensus that winning state is the main goal,” Holden said. “I’m sure everyone has their own personal goals and I think that’s super important but that’s the goal that we want to work for and I think we can do it.”

There is plenty of reasons for the Regal’s lofty expectations this season.

Regina returns 10 starters from last year’s team that went 15-3 and fell to Van Meter 1-0 in the Class 1A state semifinals.

Among those 10 returning starters are four senior all-staters in Holden, Evan White, Ethan Beard and Drew Greve.

“That’s the goal, win state, no doubt,” White said. “We’ve done everything else.”

Just as Regina didn’t need to deliberate long about its goal for this season the Regals didn’t waste any time setting that goal.

Just a day after last season’s semifinal loss veteran coach Rick Larew met with his returners.

“We literally met at my house the day after we lost last year and I said ‘o.k. are we all in or not’,” Larew said. “If we were going to make a run it had to start that day and it has.”

Holden scored a pair of goals in Monday’s opener while White and Greve each added goals.

“We’ve been to the semifinals three years running and we can’t get over that hump, so I think the first goal is to get to state, get over that hump and for sure we want to win it,” Greve said. “We return 10 of 11 starters and we are a dangerous team for sure so we can compete with anyone.”

Greve got Regina on the board 20 minutes into Monday’s opener.

He took a feed from Holden and slipped in a shot with 20:26 remaining in the first half.

“We started out slow, they had the ball on our half the first 10 minutes so I think that was a little bit of a momentum shift,” Greve said. “Armando (Sanchez) gave a great pass to Laird, he led me through and I finished it. It was a confidence boost for all of us but I think it was also a momentum shift.”

Solon pulled even less than two minutes later when Parker Mergen scored off a Tucker Spence feed with 18:29 remaining in the opening half.

Freshman Cristiano Pratt gave Regina the lead for good with a goal with 4:48 remaining before halftime.

“I think we just slowed it down,” Holden said. “We are a team that can keep possession and once we started doing that we started making our own chances and it showed.”

Regina put the gam away with four unanswered goals in the final 27 minutes.

Holden made it a 3-1 game his first of two goals and White and junior Franco Padron each added goals in the final 10 minutes.

“It was hot this afternoon, we had to work through that,” White said. “As the game went on we started to realize what we wanted to do to go against their deep center back we were able to put guys out wide and get crosses in and I think we did a great job.”

The balanced scoring was a key for Regina which is something Larew has seen grow as he looks to establish depth.

“The thing that is unusual is they truly enjoy each other’s success,” Larew said. “There is no selfishness there is no greed if someone else gets a goal they are ecsatic for them. It’s a rare combination of so many kids on the same page.”

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