Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

CEDAR FALLS – Heading into the final weeks of the season Dustin Elsbury wanted his Regina football team feeling fresh, going fast and playing its best football.

The top-ranked Regals were all three of those things on Friday.

Class 1A No. 1 Regina was sharp in all three phases of the game in a dominant 35-0 win over fourth-ranked Treynor (10-2) in a 1A semifinal at the UNI-Dome in Cedar Falls.

“All three phases just played really high-level team football,” Elsbury said. “We talked about that we want to feel our freshest, our fastest and be playing our best football at the end of the year and I feel like our guys are doing that right now.”

Regina (12-0) dominated every facet of the game while returning to the 1A state title game for the second consecutive season.

On offense Regina rolled up 371 yards of total offense and averaged 7.9 yards per play.

Gabe Hegelheimer rushed for 125 yards and a touchdown, Aiden Gaffey threw for 153 yards and ran for a score and Tate Wallace caught four passes for 40 yards and ran for a touchdown.

“I think being here last year gave us a lot more confidence,” Gaffey said. “We just went in trusting our guys and knowing that we have a lot of playmakers and they can go out and make plays.”

On defense Regina limited Treynor to 88 yards of total offense and seven first downs while posting a shutout in the state semifinals for the first time in program history.

It was the first shutout in the UNI-Dome for Regina since a 35-0 win over Fort Dodge St. Edmond in the 2013 title game and first ever semifinal shutout.

The Regina special teams got into the act as junior Holt Hinkel returned a punt 76 yards for a touchdown.

“Our defense was great, we know our defense has our back, they’ve done it all year getting us great field position,” Gaffey said. “Our kickoff return and punt return has been great, Holt taking one back today was huge, but they give us great set ups so we can just go work.”

The Regals will be seeking the ninth state title in program history and the first since 2020 when it faces third-ranked Aplington-Parkersburg (12-0) in the 1A title game on Thursday at 4 p.m.

Aplington-Parkersburg defeated defending 1A champion West Lyon 27-22 in the second 1A semifinal on Friday.

“In the Dome, in this environment with the crowd roaring we wanted to see how our guys were going to handle this,” Elsbury said. “It was awesome to see their response of just staying the course.”

Regina opened the game with an efficient 6-play, 80-yard touchdown drive that took just 2:39 and was capped by a 4-yard run by Hegelheimer.

The big play on the opening Regina touchdown drive was a 41-yard run by Hegelheimer on a third-and-two play from the Regal 41

“We knew that our offense had a chance to come out and set the tone,” Hegelheimer said. “That drive set us up for what we continued to do all game long.”

Regina broke the game open with a pair of touchdowns in a span of two minutes and eight seconds.

Kaleb Moeller hit a wide-open Ryan Tracy for a 39-yard scoring strike that capped a 6-play, 61-yard touchdown drive with 28 seconds remaining in the first quarter.

Moeller, who had a three-touchdown performance in a quarterfinal win over Grundy Center, rushed for 25 yards, caught three passes for 35 yards and threw the 39-yard TD pass to Tracy.

“I didn’t know he could throw a ball that well,” Tracy said. “I went past the (defender) and I knew right then and there it was a touchdown. We drew it up exactly like that, and Kaleb threw a great ball to me.”

The Regal defense forced a quick three-and-out on the ensuing Treynor possession and Holt Hinkel returned a punt 74 yards for a touchdown to put Regina up 21-0 with 10:24 remaining in the second quarter.

The punt went over Hinkel’s head and the junior picked up the bouncing ball at the 26 yard line.

Hinkel cut outside and got a wall of blockers down the sideline for his fourth punt return touchdown of the season.

“The first punt was short and that one was way over my head but I got to it and I was able to get outside and I just trusted my blockers,” Hinkel said. “They did a great job of setting blocks for me.”

Regina pushed the lead to 28-0 with its most impressive drive of the game, an 11-play, 96-yard march ended with a 5-yard touchdown run by Aiden Gaffey.

Hegelheimer had seven carries for 62 yard on the touchdown drive that took 5:55 off the clock.

“We saw coming in that Treynor was a really solid team and when we see teams like that we know that we have to elevate our game,” Hegelheimer said. “I think we did a great job of that in all areas of the game.”
Wallace capped the scoring with a 7-yard touchdown burst on a fourth-and-two play with 6:40 remaining in the third quarter.

ICR                 TRE

First downs                20                    7

Rushes-yards             28-179             21-39

Comp-Att-Int            15-19-1           10-17-0

Passing yards            49                    192

Total yards                371                  88

Punts-Avg.                 0-0                   5-48

Fumbles-lost              1-1                   3-1

Penalties-yards         4-39                 1-5

Treynor          0    0   0  0  –  0

Regina            14  14  7  0 –  35

ICR – Gabe Hegelheimer 4 run (Hegelheimer kick)

ICR – Ryan Tracy 39 pass from Kaleb Moeller (Hegelheimer kick)

ICR – Holt Hinkel 74 punt return (Hegelheimer kick)

ICR – Aiden Gaffey 5 run (Hegelheimer kick)

ICR – Tate Wallace 7 run (Hegelheimer kick)

Individual Statistics

RUSHING – ICR: Gabe Hegelheimer 16-125, Kaleb Moeller 3-25, Kevin Garcia Castro 3-9, Jarrett Naeve 2-11, Tate Wallace 1-7, Aiden Gaffey 1-5, Connor Keech 1-2, Team 1-(-5). TRE: Dylan Dreyer 7-30, Kratyn Dirks 7-7, Finn Mieska 4-16, Tracen Frain 2-(-14), Team 1-0.

PASSING – ICR: Aiden Gaffey 14-18-1 153, Kaleb Moeller 1-1-0 39. TRE: Kratyn Dirks 4-8-0 23, Tracen Frain 6-9-0 26.

RECEIVING – ICR: Tate Wallace 4-40, Ryan Tracy 3-51, Kaleb Moeller 3-35, Holt Hinkel 2-30, Gabe Hegelheimer 1-25, Will Litton 1-7, Trey Streb 1-4.TRE: Brock Casey 5-33, Riley Lauver 3-5, Austin Moss 1-6, Cael White 1-5.

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