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MONONA — If at first you don’t succeed, try again. Or in this case, try, try, try, try and try again.
That’s five, right?
That’s how many tries it took MFL MarMac’s football program to break through the playoff quarterfinals and find its way to the UNI-Dome in Cedar Falls for the semifinals.
Wyatt Powell rushed for 160 yards and a pair of touchdowns, and the Bulldogs did their usual physical football thing to beat Iowa City Regina, 22-7, in a Class 1A quarter Friday night. MFL MarMac (10-1) came in ranked No. 4 by The Gazette and Regina (9-2) fifth.
A program without much, if any, success in its history, MFL MarMac has completely turned it around under head coach Dan Anderson, who has led the school to the playoffs five years in a row. The next step for everyone was finally breaking that quarterfinal hex.
It’s way gone. MFL MarMac will face No. 2 Underwood (10-1) in a semifinal at the UNI-Dome this coming Friday at 1 p.m.
“So much, honestly. So much,” said MFL MarMac quarterback-linebacker Carver Blietz-Bentien, when asked what was going through his mind as he celebrated with his teammates and what seemed the entire communities of Monona, Luana and Farmersburg on the field postgame. “It’s kind of hard to take it all in. I’ve never really experienced something like this. We set goals for ourselves before the season. First was a district championship, then it was playoffs. We just went one week at a time, but we knew our end goal was the Dome at all times.”
“It’s surreal,” added Powell. “A great moment for us. A lot of sad seniors because it’s our last home game, but we didn’t want to be done. That was the biggest thing, that’s what our coaches were preaching right away. We don’t want to be done, yet.”
This game was MFL MarMac football to a tee. Lots of ball possession under a Wing-T offensive formation, with Powell, Blietz-Bentien, Quinn McGeough and Bryce Radloff sharing carries.
Powell’s 63-yard touchdown run over the middle on the first play of the second quarter provided the game’s first points, with him adding a 2-point run after Regina was offside on the initial extra-point kick try. The 6-foot-1, 220-pound back has good feet and runs with a vengeance, rarely going down on first contact.
That was the case on this TD, as he broke a pair of tackles in the open field en route to the end zone.
“He’s a pretty special back,” Anderson said.
“We couldn’t get stuff going right away, but that long touchdown kind of set the tone and got our crowd so into it,” said Powell, who is playing with a broken right hand. “It started getting the momentum toward us.”
Regina’s ensuing possession went awry, as MFL MarMac safety Brandon Christofferson intercepted a Gentry Dumont pass at the Regals 35. Eventually Blietz-Bentien sneaked over from the 1 for the touchdown, with Benjamin Krambeer’s extra point making it 15-0 at halftime.
Another short field after a short punt set up a Powell 4-yard TD run early in the fourth. That was all she wrote.
“It feels good, but it’s not about me. It’s about these guys,” Anderson said. “All these fans, these parents. This is something that’s never been done in school history. It’s been hard the last few years to get so close and not get (to the Dome). It’s been tough, last year was really tough.
“But this defense, we’re tough as nails. To hold those guys to seven points .. We’re very physical. It’s about these kids. This is something they’ll remember the rest of their lives.”
Dumont was a 2,000-yard passer this season for Regina but was limited to 160 yards here, as MFL MarMac pressured him and didn’t give up anything over the top, with the exception of the very first Regals play when he hit Ty Joss deep for 55 yards over the middle.
Regina came in averaging over 40 points per game but finished with just 188 total yards, its only touchdown set up on a bad MFL MarMac punt snap that gave Regina the ball at the Bulldogs 25 with four minutes left. Dumont and Joss connected on a 13-yard slant pattern.
“We threw a lot of different pressures at them, a lot of different formations at them,” Blietz-Bentien said. “We knew that they were kind of reading our defense at some points, so we just started switching everything up and didn’t let them know what was coming at them.”
“When you’re playing against a team that controls the ball, you’ve got to capitalize on every drive,” said outstanding Regina receiver Jackson Naeve. “We messed up some things, (gave up) long touchdowns. We didn’t play the best, but hats off to them. They’re a good team.”
A good team headed to the UNI-Dome. Finally.
“We actually talked about it a lot this week,” Blietz-Bentien said. “It was kind of one of those main points of that we just didn’t want it to be over, honestly. We just had to want it more. We knew we had to play for those guys in the past that didn’t quite make it.”
“You can’t let that go,” Powell said. “We lost four years straight in the quarterfinals, so this win was big for us. Our coaches preached that we can’t lose this game again. This game was MFL MarMac legacy.”
MFL MarMac 22, Iowa City Regina 7
(At Monona)
Iowa City Regina 0 0 0 7-7
MFL MarMac 0 15 0 7-22
- MFLMM-Wyatt Powell 63 run (Powell run)
- MFLMM-Carver Blietz-Bentien 1 run (Benjamin Krambeer kick)
- MFLMM-Powell 4 run (Krambeer kick)
- ICR-Ty Joss 13 pass from Gentry Dumont (Cash Hatfield kick)
Team Statistics
First Downs - Iowa City Regina 11, MFL MarMac 13. Rushes-Yards - Iowa City Regina 18-28, MFL MarMac 52-256. Passing - Iowa City Regina 18-26-1-160, MFL MarMac 2-7-1-41. Total Yards - Iowa City Regina 160, MFL MarMac 297. Punts-Average - Iowa City Regina 3-28.7, MFL MarMac 1-53.0. Penalties-Yards - Iowa City Regina 8-48, MFL MarMac 4-42. Fumbles-Lost - Iowa City Regina 1-1, MFL MarMac 0-0.
Individual Statistics
Rushing - Iowa City Regina: Jackson Naeve 6-19, William Aitchison 4-9, Gentry Dumont 8-0. MFL MarMac: Wyatt Powell 22-160, Quinn McGeough 13-50, Bryce Radloff 5-39, Carver Blietz-Bentien 9-26, Brandon Christofferson 1-(minus) 9, Team 2-(minus 5). Passing - Iowa City Regina: Gentry Dumont 19-26-1-160. MFL Mar-Mac: Carver Blietz-Bentien 2-6-1-41, Elias Hatt 0-1-0-0. Receiving - Iowa City Regina: Ty Joss 5-80, Tate Wallace 5-26, Alex Jensen 3-26, Jackson Naeve 3-25, Andrew Greve 1-8, William Aitchison 1-0. MFL MarMac: Brandon Christofferson 1-32, Wyatt Powell 1-7, Hunter Christofferson 1-2.
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