Ellie, Ben Holen are not satisfied with recent success
Dec. 23—JAMESTOWN — December has been a kind one to the Holen family as University of Jamestown libero Ellie Holen was named the NAIA Women's Volleyball Defender of the Year and Ben Holen is helping his LaMoure/Litchville-Marion girls basketball team get off to a fast start.
For the second consecutive year, Ellie Holen was named the Defender of the Year. She is believed to be the first back-to-back Defender of the Year selection in program history. She said she found out when the Jimmies volleyball team posted the news on its Instagram account and family sent her the post.
"It's a really really big honor because there are so many great defenders in the nation that it could've easily went to," Ellie said. "I'm just really honored and I feel really blessed to have been recognized."
While he is happy for his younger sister, Ben said he would have rather seen the Jimmies win the national title, something Ellie echoed. Ben said he found out from his wife that Ellie won the award.
"I would trade any individual award for a team award," Ellie said. "It still hurts but we had a great year and I'm very proud of how we ended."
During her senior season, Ellie had nine kills, 117 assists and 887 digs. Her 887 digs were second in the nation and a new career high for the LaMoure native.
As of Dec. 20, the Loboes are 4-3, and finished third in the Barnes County Tournament. The Loboes volleyball team finished their season on Nov. 18 and their first basketball game of the season was on Nov. 28.
"It's not an excuse or anything but missing that first week of the season because of volleyball was different," Ben said. "I was telling someone, I think we were just fine for the first 10, 12 days we kind of had an adrenaline spike and excitement to switching gears to basketball but then after a little while we just fundamentally started to break down, we weren't doing the little things that we feel we need to and we feel we should by now. So, we've had to take a little bit of a step back and go back to our preseason practice type of drills and things like that, which won't help us as much in the short term with preparations for teams and things like that. We just felt like we had to revisit it and fundamentally get back to principles and things."
Despite the criticalness of Ben, Ellie is absolutely confident her brother and his team will be able to have a successful season.
"It's not a coincidence that Ben's teams are so talented and doing so amazing because of the amazing coaching that he does and the standards that he sets for his girls and what he holds them to," Ellie said. "I just know that they're gonna have an amazing year with Ben as the head coach. He's been around when I played for so long and he's coached me in basketball many many times. He's very knowledgeable and they're in very good hands."
Ben said as the season has gone along, it has been easier to put together a practice plan and address what he and his assistant coach, Andy DeLaBarre, see on the floor. He said his team has to increase its consistency throughout the season. In the team's wins this season, the Loboes have outscored opponents 225-153. However, in losses, the Loboes have been outscored 190-156. This campaign, Ben said he is trying to build good habits for his team which includes only one senior and only two upperclassmen, Tessa Rasmusson and Georgia Lettenmaier. He said Rasmusson has been the leader for the team.
"Part of it does come with time," Ben said. "We're pretty young, I don't like to bring that up much because I don't want it to be taken as an excuse and I don't want them to think that we don't have to have urgency and that we have time, but you don't know how much time you have, you don't know what roster is going to be around, you don't know which girls are going to be able to stay healthy, you just don't know those things so you have to have a sense of urgency with it. I do think, it does come with time, but I think on the flip side of that, that approach can't be what we use."
When asked who has played well for his team this season, Ben said his team has had stretches where everybody has played well and stretches where nobody has played well.
"There's nights where we look different than we had the previous game, sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a bad way," Ben said. "But, everybody's had moments, everybody's improving."
One of the early season games he said he was most proud of his team was in its loss to Sargent County when the Loboes erased a lopsided deficit to only five points at halftime.
"Sargent County jumped on us, after one quarter we were down 18-3 and we were able to whittle it down all the way to two at one point in the second but it was five at half," Ben said. "That's big for us, the ability to take a punch and make a punch, the ability to get back up and counter a run. If you can't end the other team's run you have to counter it with one of your own and at times we've lacked the ability to do that, so that's always good to see."
Ben and Ellie are not the only members of their family to have success in sports as their older brother, Jake, played for the Jimmies men's basketball team and the middle child, Anna, played five years with the Jimmies volleyball team, helping the team win a national championship and recording 1,372 kills, 56 assists, 117 aces, 2,214 digs and 206 total blocks.
"I hope that we've had an impact on our teammates, a positive impact, where they know our intentions out on the court are to be a good teammate and give our very very best and to always be reliable," Ellie said. "I just hope that my teammates see that with both me and Anna as we leave the program."
While she remains undecided about her future, Ellie said she is considering coming back for her fifth year next season.
"Who knows maybe I'll come back one more year and give coach (Jon Hegerle) a few more gray hairs through the process," Ellie said. "I am leaning towards it, yes, but we'll see how it goes."
