Iowa City Regina escapes Alburnett boys hoops upset bid

ALBURNETT - You could see Tate Wallace being the guy who brought the Iowa City Regina boys basketball team back from a fourth-quarter deficit and eventually to a 58-53 win Friday night in a darned good River Valley Conference game.

That makes sense.

The powerful 6-foot-3 forward, who actually is a big-time college football recruit as a linebacker, leads Regina in scoring this season and did so again here. No surprise he was integral in bringing his guys back from three points down early in the fourth and eventually into a nine-point lead in the final two minutes.

But no one is raising their hand for predicting Emmett Burke would join Wallace as the co-star of this victory, one that moved the Class 2A No. 2 Regals to a record of 10-1.

Burke scored 11 points off the bench, which blows his 2.8-point season average totally out of the water. The kid hit a 3-pointer just before the first-quarter buzzer to cut Alburnett’s lead to 16-13.

He then swished another trey at the second-quarter buzzer to cut a five-point Regina deficit to 30-28 at halftime. A couple of minutes into the fourth, he nailed a 3-pointer that brought the Regals into a 44-44 tie.

For good measure, he tipped a ball away from an Alburnett player to a teammate, who fed him down court for a layup that extended Regina’s lead to 51-44 with 3:09 left.

“The two 3s in the first half, I was open in the corner, and my point guard found me on both of them,” Burke said. “That steal, I tipped it and got another pass from a teammate down the court. It was all my teammates setting me up for success.”

Come on, Emmett. You gotta give yourself props, too.

The entire Regina team props. It hasn’t had many close games this season and had a massive size advantage on an undersized team from Alburnett (7-5).

The Regals started 6-foot-9 Ben Wade, 6-5 Will Witton and the aforementioned muscular 6-3 Wallace, while Alburnett’s five starters include four who are 6-foot or shorter.

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The mighty mites are mighty quick, though, which allowed Alburnett to outrebound Regina and to fearlessly get to the buckett on a litany of lane drives. Laken Caves led Alburnett with 20 points, Caiden Bueckers added 13.

“I just told our guys to compete, and I feel like they competed,” said Alburnett Coach Jeff Christopherson. “For the fans, it was a great ballgame. For the coaches, it probably took a couple months off our lives.”

“I think our three guards out there are pretty good guards, and Tate Gustafson (another) is coming along. I think a lot of it is we grew a lot during Christmas time. We were not able to do a lot of summer stuff ... So were probably a little bit behind. But we’ve had good practices here. You know how kids are. I think our focus has been pretty good, we had good focus in last night’s practice on what we had to do to have a chance.”

After getting down nine late, Alburnett made it very, very interesting. Caves hit a 3, then a driving shot to cut the Pirates’ deficit to 53-51 with 23 seconds left.

Alburnett then got a steal out of its full-court pressure defense, with Lakes getting an open corner trey attempt that would have put it suddenly on top. It didn’t fall, Regina made one of two free throws with 11.4 to go for a 56-53 lead, with Litton grabbing the offensive rebound.

Two more free throws finally ice it.

“The way they got up on us, they have really good athletes,” said Regina Coach Paul Rundquist. “You want to play good competition to say where you’re at. The kids really stepped it up in the second half. We gave up 30 in the first half, and I think about midway through the fourth quarter we’d only given up 14 in the second half.”

“I think this was very important for us,” Burke said. “It was a playoff atmosphere, a playoff-style basketball game, and I think that will be really important for us down the stretch to have been in a tight game, to have been through adversity and come back. So that was really good for us.”

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AT ALBURNETT

IOWA CITY REGINA (58): Tate Wallace 10-15 1-6 21, Miles Nuzback 0-3 1-4 1, Will Litton 4-6 1-2 9, Ben Wade 4-7 0-1 8, Drew Greve 2-5 2-2 6, Jack O’Leary 1-3 0-0 2, Emmett Burke 4-5 0-0 11. Totals 25-44 5-15 58.

ALBURNETT (53): Hayden Gustafson 4-6 0-0 8, Kinnick Wilhelm 2-4 0-0 5, Laken Caves 9-15 1-7 20, Caiden Bueckers 2-8 7-8 13, Beckett Misener 2-8 0-1 4, Zach Krigbaum 0-2 0-0 0, Brady Kaestner 1-2 0-0 3, Liam Carolan 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 19-44 8-16 53.

Halftime - Alburnett 30, Iowa City Regina 28. 3-point goals - Nuzback 0-3, Wade 0-1, Greve 0-1, O’Leary 0-2, Burke 3-4), Alburnett 5-17 (Wilhelm 1-3, Caves 1-4, Bueckers 2-5, Misener 0-3, Kaestner 1-2). Rebounds - Iowa City Regina 23 (Wallace 8), Alburnett 28 (Caves, Bueckers 6). Total fouls - Iowa City Regina 15, Alburnett 15. Fouled out - Gustafson. Turnovers - Iowa City Regina 13, Alburnett 15.

Comments: (319)-398-8258, jeff.johnson@thegazette.com