Iowa head coach Lisa Bluder answered the season’s first question — who will start this year for the Hawkeyes — when the starting lineups were announced, and they weren’t quite what Hawkeye fans expected.

Bluder started Sam Logic, Bethany Doolittle, Ally Disterhoft, Kali Peschel, and freshman Whitney Jennings. Senior Melissa Dixon, a returning starter recovering from an injury, came off of the bench.

The Iowa’s women’s basketball team hosted St. Ambrose on Sunday, beating the Bees, 119-57, in an exhibition.

With that, Dixon has come off the bench for more games than she did all of last season, in which she started 36 of the 36 games played.

Logic scored 5 points in the game’s first 35 seconds, and that largely set the tempo for the first half. Iowa came flying out of the gate and led 30-14 midway through the first half.

Dixon thrived in her role as the first option off the bench, as she sank three of her first four 3-point attempts and led the team with 16 first half points.

“I did that sophomore year and got used to it then,” she said. “But I’m just coming back and getting back in the flow of things, getting going up-and-down.”

Disterhoft contributed 13 points, and Doolittle had 11 and led with 7 rebounds. Iowa led at the half, 64-30. 

Freshman Chase Coley also had an impressive first half, with 8 points, 7 rebounds, and 2 blocks in her first career game. Six of her 8 points came from the free-throw line.

Out of the intermission, it was Doolittle’s turn to take over. In under the first seven minutes of the half, she quickly rose to 21 points and 11 rebounds. Her dominance down low made it essentially impossible for the St. Ambrose defense to expand out to defend the Hawkeyes’ perimeter attack.

“We worked a lot on execution and working together as a team for the first time,” Doolittle said. “Kind of getting that work in today and getting the freshmen playing with everybody else, it worked well today.”

Bluder’s offense moved liked clockwork as a result, and the Hawkeyes put on a show all afternoon long.

Contributions came from all over the floor, with several players getting playing time and taking advantage of it.

Freshman Carly Mohns received time with the regular rotation and played well throughout the game. She showed an ability to compete physically and displayed good hustle, finishing with 8 points and 9 rebounds in only 11 minutes.

Coley complemented that with 11 points, 12 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 blocks, and 1 steal in only 14 minutes.

“I thought our freshmen did really well for their first time out,” Bluder sad. “When you think that two of them accounted for 21 of our rebounds, that’s nice. Carly and Chase both had 6 offensive rebounds along with Beth, so that was really nice to see.”

Doolittle finished the night as the leading scorer with 21, while Dixon’s tally was 19. Disterhoft also ended with 18.

The Hawkeyes collectively shot 50 percent from the 3-point arc and also had 28 assists on 41 total field goals. Holding the Bees to 57 points on 31.3-percent shooting and outrebounding them 58-33, Iowa looked about as good as it needed to in the exhibition game.

“We told them to ignore the scoreboard, and I thought we did a nice job of keeping our focus and keeping our intensity the entire time,” Bluder said. “It’s not always easy to do, but I thought we did get better at executing. We were able to run our stuff and work on it.”