Iowa City Regina smashes Pella Christian in Class 2A semifinal

DES MOINES - Give ‘em credit. These Iowa City Regina Regals don't have much reason to know who Mark Gannon is, but they do.

'Mark Gannon? Yeah, of course,” said Regina's Drew Cook.

'Oh, yeah,” said Regina's Nick Phillips. 'Former Iowa player who played at Regina.”

'He was a good player back then,” said Regina's Nathan Stenger.

Gannon was a great player in the 1970s, widely considered among the top 20 or so preps all-time in Iowa. He helped Regina win three state championships before going on to play for the Hawkeyes.

Kind of hard to believe it was the Gannon-led 1979 Regals that were the last Regina team to win it all. Well, until this season - maybe.

'Thirty-six years, that's a long time,” Cook said, after Regina smashed Pella Christian, 55-33, Thursday afternoon in a Class 2A state tournament semifinal at Wells Fargo Arena. 'We're all just super excited. We've never been in this situation before with basketball.”

Of course, it's an annual thing in football. Most of these Regals have been part of a gridiron juggernaut that has produced four straight championships.

'To be honest, they're both fun,” Stenger said. 'They're both great in their ways. I love how in both sports that the whole team comes together, and we really play for each other.”

Regina (22-4) plays Treynor (23-3) in Friday's 8:06 p.m. finals. It's a matchup of the tournament's sixth (Regina) and fifth (Treynor) seeds.

Treynor toppled top-seeded Aplington-Parkersburg in Thursday's other semifinal.

'Treynor is very quick, they're good off the bounce, they're a very unselfish team. and they're relentless,” said Regina Coach Stu Ordman.

Speaking of relentless, that aptly describes Regina's defense in two games here. The Regals allowed 32 points to Cascade in Tuesday's quarterfinals and held Pella Christian (17-8) to a single point in the third quarter.

The Eagles went the entire second and third quarters and 18:27 total without a field goal. They looked nothing like the team that shocked second-seeded Western Christian in the quarterfinals.

Regina, obviously, had a lot to do with that.

'That just wasn't the team I saw most of this season, and give Regina credit for that. Their defense was tremendous,” said PC Coach Larry Hessing. 'I thought they were tougher than we were, and we didn't handle their aggressiveness.”

'I think we just really picked up our intensity out there,” Phillips said. 'Everybody was denying passes, taking away their favorite things. Coach tells us teams can do their first and second things well, but not their third things that well. So we were just trying to take away their first couple of things on offense.”

The thing is Ordman thinks his club's defense can be even better.

'I'll keep that under my hat right now, but there are different things you have to do with different teams,” Ordman said. 'That's what I'm most proud of them about. That Pella Christian team is like the polar opposite of Cascade. They wanted to play fast, they shoot something like 21 3s a game, they had guys who were good off the bounce. Cascade was super patient, fundamentally sound, run their sets, had six or seven sets. So making that (defensive) transition in 48 hours, that's what I'm most proud of them about.”

Cook posted another double-double of 15 points and 12 rebounds for Regina, which led by as many as 31. Stenger added 13 points.

'I just think every game we are getting better and better,” Cook said. 'I hope that continues into tomorrow. I'm super pleased with how we played today and looking forward to tomorrow.”