Iowa stars Lucy Olsen and Hannah Stuelke led the Hawkeyes to their first back-to-back win in almost a month with an 85-80 triumph over Northwestern. In a return game for Stuelke after missing two games due to concussion, she recorded 26 points and six rebounds in the win on Tuesday.
On Thursday, the program's Instagram account, @iowawbb, shared a highlight reel of Stuelke's performance on social media, to which Olsen responded with a comment.
"The Stuelke Sizzle," @iowawbb wrote on Instagram.
The senior guard added two faces with steam from nose emojis, conveying her feeling of pride over her teammate's strong return.
The 26-point outing comes as Hannah Stuelke's season-high, as the junior forward continues to make a huge impact, averaging 13.6 points and 8.1 rebounds for Jan Jensen's squad.
During the Jan. 16 loss against Nebraska, Stuelke suffered a concussion when a Husker player hit her head hard while going for a rebound. She was held out of Iowa's next two games against Oregon and Washington.
Lucy Olsen, the leading scorer for the Hawkeyes, also came up big against the Wildcats with 16 points, six assists and five rebounds.
Hannah Stuelke shares emotions of watching teammates play from home
Stuelke, a Cedar Rapids, Iowa native talked about the experience she endured while having to stay home and watch her teammates play. The Hawkeyes traveled west to Eugene, Oregon and Seattle, Washington without Stuelke last week.
The 6-foot-2 junior missed those games — a 50-49 loss to the Ducks and an 85-61 win over the Huskies — due to a concussion sustained during Iowa's previous game against Nebraska.
During the postgame press conference following the win over Northwestern, Stuelke shared her thoughts on missing road games and recovery.
"It was really weird watching them on the TV and yelling at the TV because I’ve never experienced that before," Stuelke said. "I missed the girls a lot. It was really nice to be back on the court with them."
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A reporter then asked her when she felt ready to return to play after the injury.
"I started doing like on my own workouts on Wednesday, so, just once my symptoms were gone, I was pretty much cleared, and then just worked back into practice and here we," Stuelke replied.
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Coach Jan Jensen said in her postgame comments that she had never seen Hannah Stuelke as excited as when she was cleared to return.
Iowa hosts JuJu Watkins and the No. 4 USC Trojans next at Carver-Hawkeye Arena on Sunday.
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