Regina back to 1A title game with 3-1 victory

DES MOINES - Looks like Daniel Larew is getting the bonus plan.

“At the beginning of the season, I was thinking, ‘OK, if we get to state, I'll be happy,'” the Iowa City Regina midfielder said. “I mean, we lost eight starting seniors. But when we got here, I was like ‘All right, if we win the first one, then I'll be happy.'

“Now that we got a second win, I wanna win it all.”

Make that win it all again. Regina advanced to the Class 1A state soccer tournament championship Friday afternoon for the second straight year with a 3-1 win over Clear Lake at Cownie Park.

The top-seeded and defending champion Regals (18-4-1) get No. 2 seed Fort Madison Holy Trinity (16-2) today at noon. They hope for a better start considering they dropped behind Clear Lake (11-6) just 12 minutes in before rallying.

Larew tied it late in the first half. Johnny Rummelhart put the Regals up for good early in the second and Larew capped the victory exactly 11 minutes later.

“Once we got one, we were bound to get another one,” said Rummelhart, who has a team-leading 26 goals.

“We've got a lot of kids that play well,” said Regina Coach Rick Larew, Daniel's dad. “We're very fit, so we wanted to run them off the field. That's our game plan every day.”

Regina had a clear advantage in ball possession and chances. On a warm and humid day, the Regals' depth was telling.

And they put up a nice little tent above the team bench to keep everyone out of the sun. Clear Lake didn't.

To the victor, go the spoils.

"They're a good team with good athletes," Coach Larew said of the opponent. "They have good, competitive all-around athletes. But we felt if we just kept pushing and pushing, they would wear down. In a sense, that happened."

Here's a short video interview with Daniel Larew: