If you’re planning to travel with our Ashland Eagles on their tournament run, we want to talk to you. Drop us a line at news@ashlandsource.com or fill out this quick form.
ASHLAND — Hallie Heidemann, a fierce defender and playmaker for the Ashland University Women’s basketball team, always had competitors close by while she grew up in the west side of Cincinnati.
She had two rambunctious older brothers who were not afraid to play rough, and a younger sister who would go on to play high school basketball.
After school, the Heidemanns and some neighborhood children would get together and battle it out in their backyard, shooting hoops, scoring touchdowns, or just bouncing on the family’s trampoline.
“That neighborhood gathering of competing and playing sports was also a huge part of growing up and having fun playing sports and getting tougher, getting beat up on by older people and older brothers,” Heidemann said.
The adults in Heidemann’s childhood were also no strangers to competition. Her mother was an “incredible athlete” in high school, playing basketball, softball, and volleyball. Her uncle played basketball in college.
And their father, Heidemann’s grandfather, was himself a “great” basketball player, she said.
When she was 8 years old, Heidemann joined her first official basketball team. Her earliest memory of the sport was playing in the Friar’s Club in Cincinnati, where the rims were brought down to eight feet to allow the little athletes to make more shots.
“We were so little and just running up and down, playing and having fun. It was just super fun from the start,” she said.
She’s stuck with the sport ever since, playing for an Amateur Athletic Union team, then for her high school, Mercy McAuley, and now for five years with the Ashland Eagles.
In the past week alone, she scored 45 points, earned her 100th win as a starter for AU, and was selected the NCAA Division II Midwest Regional MVP.
“It’s such an honor. I mean, I don’t think something like that comes without being on a successful team who’s winning the regional championship,” she said. “I definitely wouldn’t be the player I am without the coaches here and the, the teammates who surround me on the court.”
The team is also the reaso she chose to go to Ashland University. When she first met AU’s squad back in 2018, she knew right away that she would want to stay and play basketball with them for years to come.
“These teammates are so special. I could not imagine playing at any other college in the United States. Like the team here is so fun, so loving, so special, so together. We love each other really well,” she said.
Heidemann clings to a couple of pregame rituals before hitting the court. She eats an apple and ties her right shoe a bit tighter than her left.
When she gets out there her mind is on one thing: doing what the team needs and playing as hard as she can, she said.
“(I’m) bringing everything that I can bring, and then trusting my teammates and believing in my teammates and just the work that we have put in,” she said.
In years past, Heidemann struggled with her nerves when she played in big postseason games. But a song with lyrics tied to her Christian faith — which she said is central to her basketball career — soothed her anxiety, allowing her to approach this postseason with a level head.
She realized that nothing she could do on the court, be it missing a game winning shot or getting scored on, would change who she is as a “child of God,” she said.
“That gave me fearlessness and confidence in every area of life,” she said.
As her team heads into the Elite Eight for the first time in five years, she wants to keep using her platform as a player to “bring light and joy” to those watching.
“(It’s) my favorite part about (playing), the greater purpose and the impact we can have through the game,” she said.
