Hey @David_Bolen,
Unfortunately there is no way of getting rid of the blank space under the grouped column.
Have you considered using expandable rows?? You could aggregate your data to show info about the group in the parent row, and have either another table in the expendable section, or other components. O made a video a while ago on this which you can watch here
Also, here's a post on how you could aggregate your data to have nested values under each record Looking for some possible ideas - #5 by MiguelOrtiz