Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

DES MOINES – What has been a storybook season for the Regina boys soccer team got its fitting finish on Friday.

After three seasons of semifinal heartbreak Regina returned to the top of the Class 1A soccer on Friday and it was the Regals’ senior leader that provided the finishing touches on an unbeaten season.

Laird Holden posted his second hat trick of the state tournament to lift top-ranked Regina (21-0-1) to a 3-2 win over third-ranked Council Bluffs St. Albert in the 1A state title match at Mediacom Stadium in Des Moines.

“It’s amazing,” Holden said. “I couldn’t have imagined it better. It’s so cool.”

The state title is the ninth in program history for Regina, tied for the most in state history, and the first for the Regals since 2019.

Regina improved to 9-0 all-time in state title matches while completing its first unbeaten state title season.

“It’s all that’s good in young people,” Regina coach Larew said. “People who think that young people today aren’t willing to work hard or set goals are just wrong. These kids worked so hard.”

The title was extra sweet for the Regina seniors who were part of three consecutive one-goal semifinal losses that included a pair of extra time defeats.

On Thursday Regina defeated fourth-ranked West Central Valley in penalty kicks to snap the string of semifinal defeats.

Friday Regina returned to the top.

“It feels amazing,” senior Drew Greve said. “I couldn’t be more grateful. When you win something like this with our childhood best friends in your last high school game it means a lot. I am just so proud of everyone.”

Holden had a hat trick in a 7-1 quarterfinal win over Grundy Center/Gladbrook-Reinbeck on Monday.

The senior was kept largely in check in the semifinal win over West Central Valley on Thursday.

“That was such a boring game, West Central Valley, all credit to them they are full of amazing kids, amazing athletes but man I hate playing teams where everyone is back,” Holden said. “Their defense was amazing and it was annoying.”

Holden saved perhaps his best performance for last.

Holden snapped a scoreless tie with a goal with 14:59 remaining in the opening half and scored twice in the opening 15 minutes of the second half to stake Regina to an insurmountable 3-0 cushion.

With three goals in Friday’s final Holden upped his state-leading season total to 43 goals.

“Laird is a special guy,” Larew said. “Laird has grown up so much the past couple of years and part of that growing up is when you get knocked down do you sit there and throw your hands up and say ‘foul’ or do you get up and play. That’s part of growing up. You just keep playing.”

Holden gave Regina early when he took a perfect feed from Connor Hoffman on the left side of the box and slotted a shot into the right hand side of the goal with 14:59 remaining before halftime.

“Oh my gosh, I can’t tell you how good of a pass that was, I saw that and my eyes got big,” Holden said. “It was just a perfect ball and I knew where to put it. I couldn’t be happier.”

It remained 1-0 Regina until Holden struck again less than three minutes into the second half.

Leading 2-0 Holden completed the hat trick when he converted a penalty kick after sophomore Gabriel Hegelheimer was fouled in the box.

The Holden penalty kick gave Regina a 3-0 lead with 25:31 remaining.

“My team gave me the right balls, I couldn’t do anything without them,” Holden said. “The preventative efforts on defense, we let up two but it wasn’t three so it was still enough to win.”

Tanner Estell got Council Bluffs St. Albert (15-5-2) on the board with a goal with 15:48 remaining.

The Falcons closed the gap to 3-2 when Morgan Young scored off a Kyle Irwin corner kick with 6:40 remaining.

It wasn’t enough.

“We ended up putting three away and that was enough,” Greve said. “We crumbled a little bit at the end but we hung strong enough to get the win. We just played our kind of game for most of that game and I couldn’t be more proud.”

Did you enjoy this subscription free article? Help keep Your Prep Sports free by donating