Pride women's basketball's trip to No. 23 Grand View selected as Heart Game of the Week

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - For the second time in the early portions of the full 2024-25 college athletics season, a Clarke University team will be featured in the Heart of America Athletic Conference's Game of the Week as Pride women's basketball will take on No. 23 Grand View University on Wednesday night, Nov. 20 at 5:30 p.m. CT in Des Moines, Iowa.

The Pride and Vikings were the two Heart Champions of the 2023-24 season as Clarke captured the Heart Regular Season Championship for the second time in program history while Grand View earned the Heart Tournament Title for the first time in their program's history.

So far in the 2024-25 season, the Pride have started 4-0, including a 2-0 start to Heart play with a pair of home victories against Graclenad by a 73-69 final and most recently an 80-64 win over Baker last Saturday. The Vikings are off to a 3-3 start overall, going 1-1 to open conference play with an 83-74 win at Park University but sufferent a 71-41 loss on the road to MidAmerica Nazarene University last Saturday.

Early on for CU, they have spread the ball around offensively to see five players averaging 10 or more points per game led by 13.5 from Sydni Morris, who is also the team's leading rebounder at 11.3 boards per game as she opened the season with a pair of double-doubles to earn Heart Defensive Player of the Week.

Behind Morris, two other newcomers to the Clarke women's basketball team have made good early impressions as Zoe Kennedy is right behind Morris at 13.0 points per game while providing a team-high six assists per game and the fourth-best rebounding average on the team at 5.5 a game with Hailey Walters averaing 10.8 points per game as one of the primary outside shooting threats for CU, averaging over two made three pointers per game.

A pair of returning guards are also over 10 points per game with point guard Maci Kuchta averaging 10.5 after a career-high 24-point performance against Graceland as Kuchta also dishes out 5.8 assists per game then Josie Potts has provided quality depth scoring in her elevated role, mostly off the bench, to average 10.5 points per game as well scoring between 12 and nine in all four games so far.

Grand View's offense is led by a pair of high-scoring guards in junior Anna Gossling and senior Ella Larson as Gossling is leading the way for the Vikings at 19.5 points per game while Larson is not far behind at 18.7 points per game while also leading the team at 6.2 rebounds per game but no other member of the GVU lineup is averaging over 6.7 points per game over their first six games.

This Heart North rivalry has grown into shape over the last three-to-four seasons starting in 2021-22 when the Vikings handed the Pride one of their just two Heart losses in CU's double Heart Championship season by an 80-69 final in Des Moines. The last three seasons have seen the games at Grand View's Dave Sisam Arena finish with a closer final margin than games at the Kehl Center as last season's games saw Clarke squeak out a 71-69 win on the road then earn a near 20-point victory at home later in the year by a final of 93-78.

Wednesday night's game will be featured on Grand View's channel of the Heart Conference Network: https://www.heartconferencenetwork.com/grandviewvikings/ with the Pride and Vikings men's teams to face off at about 7:30 p.m. CT after the conclusion of the women's game.