Iowa women’s players make appearance at HLV basketball camp

VICTOR — A connection to the Iowa women’s basketball program helped make the final day of a three-day basketball camp at HLV High School a pretty neat experience.

Current Iowa players Taylor Stremlow, Callie Levin and Teagan Mallegni made an appearance for the final session Wednesday.

“Nick (Blomme) had some connections within the women's program and was able to line up the opportunity for Iowa players to come,” HLV-TC varsity boys basketball coach Shawn Welsh said.

Blomme is the current varsity girls’ coach for HLV-TC.

The three Hawkeyes answered questions, took pictures and signed autographs for the kids that attended the camp, Welsh said.

For fun, the three players also participated in some shooting contests.

Stremlow, Levin and Mallegni will all be sophomore’s for the Hawkeyes this year. The team is coming off a 23-11 season, advancing to the NCAA tournament round-of-32 before being eliminated by Oklahoma.

Stremlow appeared in all 34 games, Mallegni in 30.

The popularity of women’s collegiate basketball has increased in state in recent years due to players such as Caitlin Clark and Iowa State’s Audi Crooks.

Over the three days, 92 boys and girls attended the camp.

“We had kids from HLV, Tri-County, BGM and English Valleys at the camp,” Welsh said.

Recent graduate Ayla Hall also helped out with the camp. Hall will be playing basketball at Central College this fall.

Others who helped run the camp included Welsh, Nick Blomme, Pat Blomme, Sean Campbell and Dylan Springer.

The three sessions each day were divided by grade: second to fifth graders, sixth to eight graders and high school athletes.