New Richmond – Colleen Lookabill didn’t think much about continuing her basketball career during her senior season.
And then it came to an end, though in the fashion she wanted. She scored 12 points and grabbed eight rebounds, helping Wyoming East win its second state championship in three years.
“That gave me a lot of confidence,” Lookabill said. “That right there is the reason I want to continue on. I was like ‘I can do this and I’m not going to end now like that.'”
Lookabill will continue playing basketball at the next level, making it official Wednesday afternoon in front of a packed room of friends, teammates, family, coaches, friends and admirers at Wyoming East High School as she signed her National Letter of Intent to play at Concord University next year.
Lookabill will become the latest member of her family to attend Concord and follows the East to Concord pipeline as well. Former teammate Skylar Davidson, whom Lookabill won a title with in 2021, recently announced her intent to transfer to Concord and Jazz Blankenship, a 2019 East graduate, will also play one more year with the Mountain Lions.
“It was honestly a last minute decision,” Lookabill said. “I knew Sky was going to Concord and she had talked to me about it even before she for sure knew and I knew I wanted another year with her. And like my mom said my whole family’s been to Concord. It was a last minute decision but I’m 100 percent happy with the choice I made.”
While Lookabill loves basketball, she didn’t think it would be her sport in college initially.
“At the beginning of the year and end of my junior year I had talked to Glenville State about track,” Lookabill said. “I thought I was going to run cross country and track but this year cross country was a lot harder on me. And so I decided I wasn’t going to be able to do it much longer, so I decided to play ball. At the end of the season I knew I wasn’t ready for it to be over.”
Lookabill recently visited Concord alongside teammate Kayley Bane and was almost immediately enamored with the culture.
“I went there about two Saturday’s ago and coach (Tesla Akers) asked me and Kayley what our favorite thing was,” Lookabill said. “I told her this reminded me of East. The whole team took us in like we were already part of their family. So we were already home. All the girls were nice and we just played. I knew if we just played ball with them then practices would be fine. And Jazz (Blankenship), I’ve always wanted to play with her. Me and her used to lift together during Covid times.”
Lookabill plans to study pre-physical therapy in Athens but before she gets there she knows she’ll need to improve on the court. She’s accepted that but has more confidence in herself after her title game performance opened her eyes to what she’s capable of.
“I want to have more confidence and shoot the ball more,” Lookabill said. “I don’t want to be scared of getting fussed at because I know I won’t. I want to grow more on offense but continue to get better on defense.”
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