DURANT, Okla. – Southeastern women's basketball is set to open the 2024-25 season with a road trip to Alva, Okla., for the GAC-NSIC Conference Challenge where it will first square off with Minnesota Duluth at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 8, before closing out the trip versus Winona State at 3:30 p.m. on Nov. 9.
The Savage Storm enter the 2024-25 season as underdogs after finishing ninth in the Great American Conference Preseason Poll.
SE returns its top three scorers from a season ago and the five players with the most starts last season.
That group is led by returning All-GAC player
Caitlin Kobiske who is already a 1,000-point scorer for the Storm and put up 14.6 ppg while pulling down 5.9 rebounds per outing.
She is joined by
Holli Lindley and
Ashton Hackler who each started 24-or-more games a year ago, with Lindley averaging 8.9 ppg and 7.0 rebounds, while Hackler added 8.1 per game offensively and 3.1 on the glass.
That trio is joined by a pair of sophomores who started 15 games each last season in
Kenzli Warden and
Eryn Dolan, while also returning
Brianna Wietelman and
Abbie Barr who saw starts last season.
SE also welcomes five new additions, two of them coming in as junior transfers in
Stevie Stinchcomb and
Kaydrin Scott, while
Brenna Howard,
Mackenzie Espinosa, and
Akiera Hawk all enter as new freshmen.
UMD comes into the season opener picked to finish eighth in the Northern Sun's preseason poll after posting a 19-10 record a season ago en route to finishing sixth in the NSIC standings.
The Bulldogs see the departure of their top four scorers and return two players who saw starting action a season ago in Lexi Karge and Myra Moorjani.
Karge was fifth on the team in scoring with 8.8 points per outing while pulling down 3.5 rebounds, while Moorjani put up 6.2 ppg, hitting 32.8 percent from beyond the arc while adding 3.0 rebounds per contest.
WSU enters the weekend picked 10
th in the 15 team NSIC and are coming off a 10-18 season that saw them finish ninth in the league in 2023-24.
The Warriors return a pair of starters, led by its returning top scorer Olivia Gamoke who averaged 9.4 ppg a season ago and hauled in 2.6 rebounds per game. She is joined by Vivica Bretton who started 19 games last season and averaged 5.2 points and 2.4 rebounds per contest.
