‘I think I am a natural leader’: Central Valley graduate Peyton Howard brings veteran presence after transferring to Eastern Washington

Following its Big Sky Conference championship season last spring, the Eastern Washington women’s basketball team’s roster changed quite a bit heading into this season.

Part of that was due to graduation and the exhaustion of eligibility. But some of it also was due to transfers – including one player the Eagles will play against this weekend.

“It’s definitely different than the last couple years when we had so many veteran players back and there was less teaching going on,” EWU head coach Joddie Gleason said. “It was more player development and schematics and fine-tuning what we were doing. This year there is a lot of teaching.”

Yet the Eagles – who host Portland State on Thursday and Sacramento State, whose leading scorer this season is former EWU player Jaydia Martin, on Saturday – have been competitive again this season. Though they lost their first two Big Sky games at Montana (78-70) and Montana State (66-54), the Eagles (4-10) led both in the second half.

Returning players have stepped into starting roles. A couple of freshmen are contributing. And three transfers are making an impact, especially grad transfer Peyton Howard.

“She’s been great,” Gleason said of Howard. “We’ve leaned on her as a returner almost, because she knows the offense so well. … She’s really embraced that leadership role.”

Howard’s familiarity with the Eagles’ offense is rooted in the point guard’s history with Joddie and (associated head coach) Skip Gleason. After graduating from Central Valley High School – a career capped by a State 4A championship in 2020 – Howard played at Seattle University, where the Gleasons were then coaching.

Howard’s freshman year was played amid COVID-19 restrictions, which meant the team couldn’t gather outside of team practices and games. But she still became close with the Gleasons.

“The Gleasons were like a set of parents that I had away from home,” Howard said.

Howard started eight of Seattle’s 25 games that season, including five of its last six. Before her sophomore year, the Gleasons were hired by Eastern Washington.

Howard said she considered transferring at the time, but she wanted to push and stretch herself to be “comfortable with being uncomfortable,” as her mother would often tell her.

Over the next three seasons, Howard’s friendships and love of Seattle – the city and the school – deepened. She started 86 of 88 games over that span, leading Seattle in assists (82) and steals (49) during the 2022-23 season (her third there) when the Redhawks went 6-24 overall and 5-13 in the Western Athletic Conference.

Seattle changed coaches after that season, hiring Skyler Young to replace Suzy Barcomb. Howard chose to stay for the 2023-24 season, finished an undergraduate degree in business management and entered the transfer portal so she could play her extra COVID year elsewhere.

It was then that she decided to get closer to home, and to reunite with the Gleasons, at Eastern Washington.

“I completed what I needed to do there,” Howard said. “I wanted to push myself to try something else.”

Howard isn’t shy about her time in Seattle. She still wears her Redhawks gear proudly.

“I did my four years there. I loved my time there. I have nothing bad to say about it,” Howard said. “I don’t have to scrap that school and forget about it. I’m not like that.”

The Redhawks continued to run the offense the Gleasons had installed there even after the Gleasons left, so the transition on that side of the ball was particularly easy for Howard when she joined the Eagles. It meant Howard could step right into the point guard spot during practices alongside returners Ella Gallatin, Ellie Boni, Alexis Pettis and Bella Hays.

She has continued to run the point this season and leads the Eagles in minutes (32.6 per game), points (14.3), assists (3.7) and steals (1.6), all of them career highs.

Teammates voted her as a captain, a role she held her last three seasons in Seattle. It’s just another way in which the transition has been pretty seamless for Howard.

“I think I am a natural leader,” Howard said. “I have a voice that I love to use.”

She also loves being a part of this team.

“I think we have all the people we need (to win),” Howard said. “We’re trying to turn the corner.”