North Fayette Valley advances to first boys’ state soccer championship game with 2OT win over Regina

DES MOINES — North Fayette Valley players and coaches insist they envisioned it from the start.

A boys’ soccer program with no state tournament wins in its history playing for a title?

You bet.

“Yeah, honestly, right from the start,” NFV junior defender/midfielder Kyler White said after the third-seeded TigerHawks outlasted No. 2 Iowa City Regina in double overtime, 1-0, in a Class 1A state semifinal Friday night at Drake Stadium. “I knew we had a great group of guys coming back and I knew we all wanted it just as bad as anybody else. We proved that tonight.”

The match was scoreless through 80 minutes of regulation plus one 10-minute overtime period. Just as the raucous NFV supporters in the stands began to wonder if penalty kicks would be needed to decide the outcome, TigerHawks junior striker Brody Schupbach fielded an assist from junior forward Lincoln Aeschliman and drove the ball past the Regina goalkeeper.

“We knew we had it,” Schupbach said. “We knew we were there, so we might as well finish it off. A beautiful cross came in. Just had to take a touch and finish.”

The goal was the 16th this season for Schupbach, which ranks third on a prodigious roster that includes a pair of 20-plus goal scorers in Aeschliman (29 goals) — who now has 11 assists — and senior Andre Fuentes (22).

“We have been working so hard for many years to get to this time,” NFV Coach Ignacio Fuentes said. “They were a very nice, hard-fought 95 minutes. But we found the net and we are very excited. We are going to celebrate and get ready for tomorrow.”

NFV (17-3) — a program that was one-and-done in both of its previous state trips in 2021 and 2022 — earned the first state tournament win in program history Wednesday against West Sioux. Now that it has toppled a 1A giant in Iowa City Regina — winner of eight state titles — the TigerHawks are even more emboldened to take one more step.

But again, they knew it all along.

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“We knew we were a different team this year,” Schupbach said. “We knew we had the heart and we knew we could do it.”

Regina (16-4) was shut out for just the second time this season. The Regals were also blanked back on April 11 at home to a ranked 4A school, Bettendorf.

“We are such a better team now than we were a month ago,” Regina Coach Rick Larew said. “They bought into it. They bought into the fitness. They bought into the improving, changes that we made and I was very pleased with them. We ran into a good, hot team. They are playing well right now. They are athletic, they are talented, they are well-coached, they are disciplined. They are all the right things.”

NFV will find out if it has enough of the “right things” against surprising Van Meter (16-5), the No. 8 seed that has already toppled No. 1 West Branch and No. 5 West Liberty at state. The TigerHawks and Bulldogs will both be seeking a first state crown when they square off Saturday at 4 p.m. in the 1A state championship match at Mediacom Stadium.

“A lot of grit,” Ignacio Fuentes said. “We have to get those guys rested tonight and focused again after celebrating a little tonight with a good meal. It is going to take a lot of grit. Van Meter has big guys, very athletic guys. We need to find an edge however we can to win the championship.”