The Ashland University women’s basketball team had a once-in-a-lifetime experience going and playing against a division 1 opponent in the Iowa Hawkeyes on October 30th. This was the first time the Eagles played an exhibition against a division 1 opponent since they played at Dayton in 2019.
The Eagles would fall to the Hawkeyes 104 to 63, with forwards Hannah Stuelke (23 points, 10-16 field goals) and Ava Heiden (14 points, 7-10 field goals) leading the way for Iowa. Those two helped dominate the paint, leading 66 to 36 in that department.
Before the game, head coach Kari Pickens told her team that, regardless of the outcome, she wanted to see her team play as hard as they could. “Let’s go make sure we make sure Iowa remembers playing us”, Pickens said as they broke their huddle after their shootaround hours before tipoff.
“I am not disappointed in our girls at all; we played hard and we played together,” said Pickens postgame. “We were not equipped to guard their post players (Stuelke and Heiden), those are some really good posts, so I am not disappointed at all, I thought our defense was great and got better as the game went on.”
Pickens went with a rotation of subbing out five players at a time to see which combination of players would work together best.
“We wanted to see who played well together, who can produce who can defend obviously playing in practice is one thing but to see it in a game is another thing”, Pickens said, “I really liked the play of Ashley Mullet, Lexi Howe, Corri Vermilya and Alysa Lopez, and we have some people that can score the ball, so I am excited to see how we put it together”.
The game started with the Eagles scoring the first basket from junior guard Lexi Howe, but the Hawkeyes responded by going on a 9-0 run. At the end of the first quarter, the Hawkeyes led the Eagles 26-15, sophomore guard Corri Vermilya leading the Eagles with 7 points off the bench.
The second quarter would be all Hawkeyes as they outscored the Eagles 25 to 10 in the quarter, going on a 16-1 run during that quarter. At halftime, the Hawkeyes were up 51-27 with senior forward Hanna Stoke leading the way with 10 points on 4-of-6 shooting, and for the Eagles, Howe led them with 12 points, going 3-of-5 from the field.
Associate head coach Jenna Kotas emphasized playing their style by saying, “We just need to come out in the second half under control and not play as fast”.
The Hawkeyes kept up the momentum in the second half, leading 81-46, despite the Eagles showing some life, going on a 6-0 run with back-to-back threes.
Eagle women’s basketball finished 32-4 overall and 19-1 in the Great Midwest Athletic Conference in 2024-25, winning both the conference regular-season and tournament titles for a fourth straight year. Ashland also reached the NCAA Division II Sweet 16 for the eighth time in program history.
The 2025-26 regular season will begin on Nov. 14 at 2 p.m. vs. Indianapolis at the Sherrill Hudson Court at Kate’s Gymnasium.
