Las Animas native Nicole Howe will be playing Division I level basketball for Southern Illinois University this winter.

    “It has always been a dream of mine to play on a Division 1 team,” Nicole told the Democrat last week.

    ‘I was thrilled when they said they were looking at me (at the March regionals in Miles City, Mont.).”

    She plans to work in the physical therapy field and a program in that discipline is offered at SIU located in Carbondale, Ill.

    SIU plays in the Missouri Valley Conference and had a 12 – 20 season this past winter and spring, losing a second-round game in the conference tournament.

    At 6 – 2, Nicole is expected to boost the SIU level of play when they go up against NCAA 2008 qualifiers DePaul and Illinois State next season.

    Nicole, playing as the “sixth woman” off the bench, had the highest field goal percentage this season for the Otero Junior College Lady Rattlers. The OJC girls team finished with a 23 -9 record and kept their opponents to an all-time low field goal percentage of only 31 percent.

    For the Lady Rattlers Nicole played the post position.

    “I like the physical competition,” she said, adding that a team is also like a family to her.

    Her coach at OJC was Taylor Wagner.

    At Las Animas Nicole’s basketball coach for her sophomore through senior seasons was Chaz Phillips. She lettered four years in basketball and three years in volleyball and track.

    Nicole, the daughter of Doug and Cindy Howe, holds the Las Animas school record in the shot put at 34 feet 5 inches and the discus at 118 feet, 3-1/4 inches.

    She was her team’s most valuable player in track her junior and senior seasons. Her senior and sohomore years she made the Santa Fe League all-conference basketball team. Also during her senior season the Lady Trojans were consolation champs at the state finals.

    In her junior year she was on the state all-tournament team and Santa Fe League all-conference team in volleyball.