Solon-Regina renew rivalry in 1A title game

DES MOINES - It's Iowa City Regina and Solon in an important football game. No, not THAT football.

This is for the Class 1A state soccer championship. The Johnson County rivals won their semifinals Friday afternoon at scorching hot Cownie Park: Regina over Fort Madison Holy Trinity behind Johnny Rummelhart's hat trick, 3-0, and Solon over MOC/Floyd Valley, 2-0.

Remember last fall when Regina stopped Solon's 42-game win streak in that "other" football? Solon has a shot at stopping Regina from a state title three-peat in this football.

Go figure.

"It's going to be a beatdown," said Rummelhart, not meaning he's predicting his club will win in a rout, by the way. "We have a rivalry with Solon in every single sport. We'll do what we do and play hard, and hopefully we'll win."

These clubs played in the regular season, with Regina (18-2-1) winning in overtime. Considering the successful multi-sport athletes on both teams, including first-year goalkeepers "recruited" from the other football team to play for the first time this season (Derrick Loveless of Solon and Braden Lehman of Regina) it's fair to expect a similarly tight affair Saturday.

"I think this is the way both schools would like to have it end," Lehmann said.

"It's pretty crazy that we're playing a school that's like 15 minutes away," said Solon's Marshall Koehn. "The last game was a really good game between us that went into overtime. I don't think you could ask for a better championship game."

They won their semifinals in different ways. Koehn ran onto a long pass and drilled home a shot from inside the box just 4:34 in for Solon (17-2-1). Nick Brown added a goal in the final two minutes.

Rummelhart had back-to-back goals a smidge less than 10 minutes apart in the second half to finally put Regina over the top in a rematch of last year's 1A championship game. Rummelhart's first tally came on a header off of teammate Cody Rouner's exquisite corner kick.

He added a late goal for his hat trick.

"Solon is such a great athletic school," Rummelhart said. They've won so many state championships. I feel like we want to beat Solon just as much as they want to beat us."

The teams came into this tournament seeded third (Regina) and fourth (Solon) and caught breaks playing seven (Holy Trinity) and eight seeds (MOC/Floyd Valley). They dominated their underdog opponents, getting the vast majority of ball possession and offensive chances.

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