Finally, a chance to play someone other than the scout team.

After weeks of squaring off against one another in the Sukup Basketball Complex, the ISU women’s basketball team will step onto the court at Hilton Coliseum on Nov. 4 to face the William Penn Lady Statesmen in an exhibition game — and it’s about time.

“We need to play. It’s time to play somebody else,” said ISU coach Bill Fennelly. “They’ve worked hard in practice, and it’s time to see who can translate practice to games and who handles that [transition].”

A large part of determining who can handle what type of workload will come down on the block. For the first time in four seasons, Fennelly and the Cyclones have questions in the post.

Forward Hallie Christofferson, a two-time honorable All-American mention, started 117 of the team’s previous 128 games, but now she plays professionally in Austria, leaving the Cyclones with a glaring hole to fill on both ends of the court.

That’s where freshmen Claire Ricketts and Bryanna Fernstrom will step in.

Ricketts and Fernstrom are just two of the five new faces on the 2014-15 women’s basketball team, but they will likely have the largest impact on how the Cyclones’ season shapes up down low.

While both players bring unique advantages to the team, they also have areas in which their game is lacking.

“[Ricketts is] more athletic, can get up and down the court, probably defends and rebounds better,” Fennelly said. “[Fernstrom’s advantage] is scoring the ball better. It’s one of those, ‘If we could put them together into one, we’d have something really special.’”

While Ricketts and Fernstrom still have room for improvement, which will likely continue as their freshmen campaigns wear on, they’ve also come a long way since arriving on campus.

“I see effort. They want to get better, they want to learn the way things are done,” said senior guard and forward Brynn Williamson. “You could tell they might not be as talented as some of the girls that are in our league, but they’re going to get there one day.”

That progress has helped put them in position to fight for the starting spot, and though only one player can ultimately get that starting role, the exhibition game might also serve as a way to see what type of rotation the freshmen could work in.

“It’s great to know that it could be either [Fernstrom] or I because, as freshmen, you are kind of still in that stage [where] you don’t where how it’s going to play out because you haven’t had any experience at the college level,” Ricketts said. “So to be able to have two of us to kind of work off of each other, kind of make each other better, I think that’s beneficial for us to go into the future.”

On the sidelines, Nov. 4’s matchup with William Penn also holds a unique meaning for Fennelly, who graduated from William Penn, which is located in Oskaloosa, Iowa, in 1979. Though he admitted the matchup with his alma mater is purely coincidence, Fennelly said it will be a fun time.

“Probably the two best things besides the birth of our boys and now my grandson that have ever happened to me is I met my wife there, and I started my coaching career there,” Fennelly said. “William Penn will always have a special place in my heart, and it’ll be fun to have them here and hope they have a great experience.”

Tipoff for the Cyclones’ season-starting exhibition game against the William Penn Lady Statesmen is scheduled for 7 p.m. Nov. 4 at Hilton Coliseum.