Saturday, October 10th, welcomes the first ever Heartland Havoc women’s tournament hosted by Iowa! This is a very big accomplishment not only for their young coach, Andrew Heim, but for the central region as a whole as this is the first official women’s tournament hosted in the region. Several events like the two Platteville home tournaments, the central region cup, and Eau Claire’s home tournaments have scheduled women’s matches along side their open games, but the Heartland Havoc is the first all women’s event. If you didn’t know, the central region had half the teams in the women’s league going into this season as well as some of the youngest teams in the division. This makes having an official women’s tournament in the region all the more important not only for internal team growth but regional growth as well. It gives our women the opportunity to prioritize and showcase all the hard work they’ve put into their team so far this season, and it offers a glimpse into what the rest of the season will look like. This event will see four teams in attendance: UWP, UIUC, UWEC, and of course Iowa. Each team will play three games, and at the end of the day, an open match between Iowa and a mixed team will take place.
If you haven’t read the Central Region’s Women’s Preview, click here to hear from the players themselves about how the season has gone and what they hope to achieve by April. Let’s take a look at the teams!
Iowa
Iowa’s women have participated in a few events over the previous season and the current season. Their most recent event was the NDA Scholarship tournament hosted by UWP in honor of alum Tim Ebert. They played on a mixed team with UWP’s current women’s captain, Reagan Bucholtz, and UWP’s alum, Kate Douglas. While the match wasn’t official, it gave the Iowa women a great start to their season by having the game under their belts as well as the support from the experienced UWP women. This time, on home turf and as a full team, they’ll be able to score more points and start achieving their goals.
UWP
Several of the UWP women will be bringing what they learned from NDA nationals the previous weekend into their games this weekend. These women haven’t been to any official women’s matches yet this season, but as stated above, one of their players participated in the women’s mixed match at the scholarship tournament in September. But now that they’ve moved inside for practice, they’ve been able to dedicate certain days to no-sting practice as well as utilize their skills nights to focus on specific strategies or techniques that need fine tuning. We hope to see some of their first wins for the season at this event, and it will be exciting to see them play their close rivals, UIUC for the first time this year.
UIUC
Illinois has the upper hand at this event because they have an official event and an unofficial match already on their books. For that recap on the Women’s Red Cedar Rumble, click here. UIUC has a team of seven that they can bring to events which is the largest in the region so far, and they’ve already played four teams so far this season (MSU, GVSU, Akron, and NKU). They might have the most confidence going into this event with their team size and experience so far, and I’m sure they are itching to add some wins to their score sheet.
UWEC
It is very exciting to see UW-Eau Claire with an official women’s team this season, and these women have already played a game this season. They brought a team of three women to the scholarship tournament in September where they played the Iowa/UWP mixed team. It was a great opportunity for their rookies to get a feel for the game while playing opponents who weren’t point farming on them. Shout out to UWP alum, Clare Beck, for stepping in when one of the UWEC women needed a break, and to UWP alum, Nicholas Stocks, for filling out their roster. We are all very excited to see the growth of this team as we look towards the future of the central region’s women’s division with their contribution.
Check out the NCDA’s YouTube Channel for the live streaming of the event as well as each teams social medias for updates leading up to the event!