The Bellevue East girls’ basketball team’s leading scorer, senior Zoey Howard, continues to work hard as the season progresses. 

The basketball team is led by Howard and coached by Eric Lenear. Howard is planning to continue her journey in girls’ basketball through high school, and soon into college. 

“I’m planning on playing in college, North Central University, in Minneapolis,” Howard said. “Ever since I was five [years old] at the YMCA, I was playing basketball.”

The girls basketball team has many new players this season compared to last year, and practices six days a week, Monday through Saturday. During the practices and games, Howard helps new players and the team as a whole. 

“It’s definitely a learning experience for those new players,” Howard said, “but it’s fun, and I enjoy playing with all of them, and they all play really hard.”

Howard has played basketball most of her life, and uses her role as a leader on the team to be an example for all the other players. She and other players work on the court with things like shooting, passing, ball handling, and other skill work. 

“Zoey does a lot of great things on and off the court,” Lenear said. “
On the court for us, she’s a senior leader, and our leading scorer. 
She also has really good grades, she has good attendance as well, and is just a really good student.”

Throughout this season, Howard has scored the most points and has the most assists per game on the team. On average, she scores around 8.2 points per game that the team plays.

“She’s really, really talented, but also great in a leadership aspect,” Lenear said. “She may not be the most willful person, but she leads by example, and she’s always going to do the right thing.”