Wednesday night at the Ryle versus Boone County Girls Varsity basketball game, Ryle Junior Abby Holtman nailed a three-pointer, landing her 1,000 point.
“I was so nervous, and I don’t get nervous. I knew how much I was away, and that was in my head,” Abby said. “I just wanted it so bad. I was 13 away. I had 10 points; I remember thinking, I can’t believe I’m open for a three. My point guard threw it out to me, and it went in. I took a couple steps, and you could see the relief come off of me.”
Abby said her teammates ran to support her and were all cheering loudly, and her coaches were standing up yelling in excitement. She said she looked to the crowd and found her parents on their feet cheering her on.
“It makes me real proud to make them proud,” she said.
Holtman’s dad, Aaron Holtman, said she is a really good shooter and specializes in three-pointers.
“It was fitting that she got her 1,000th point on a three-pointer,” Aaron Holtman said.
After Abby earned her 1,000th point, the game was stopped to recognize her achievement. They gave her the ball that she earned the achievement with, which will get her name, date and 1,000 points painted on it to keep as memorabilia.
“It’s exciting to see all her hard work paying off,” Aaron Holtman said. “I mean, she’s one of the hardest working kids. She’s either practicing or she’s training or me and her are getting shots up somewhere.”
Abby has played basketball since the third grade, when her parents told her they saw her potential to go far with her basketball career.
“If I didn’t love it, I wouldn’t still be doing it, but I just really fell in love with it,” Abby said.
Holtman is only the 11th person in Ryle’s school history to achieve 1,000 points in her career, and she did it as a junior, proving why she was ranked No. 1 in the ninth region coming into her junior year.
“I’m the 11th-I guess leading scorer, you can say, but I still got a whole year left, so I’m hoping I can climb that ladder a little bit more before I leave,” she said said.
All of Abby’s hard work has been paying off. She currently has 11 Division one offers from colleges around the country to play basketball, even earning her first offer from Wright State in the eighth grade. Schools like the University of Cincinnati, the University of Memphis and Northern Kentucky University have all made her offers.
“She’s in the gym constantly working her butt off. She’s an incredible athlete,” Abby’s uncle Nick Eads said.
Aside from the time she puts in on Ryle’s basketball team during the summer, Abby also plays for EYBL, the Nike Elite Youth Basketball League. The team is an AAU travel team that allows college coaches to get the chance to watch her play as they travel around the country for games. AAU circuit events allow college coaches to watch hundreds of players at one event instead of traveling to every high school game around the country.
“It was actually crazy to see all the big-time college coaches just sitting there watching your kid play,” Aaron Holtman said.
Around the age of four, Abby had to get hearing aids for moderate hearing loss. She received smaller advanced Bluetooth hearing aids when she entered high school. She said she noticed the battery would die immediately as sweat started to get into them as she began to wear them during games.
“If one dies, I can still play just because I’ve been playing for so long,” Abby said. “But I think in the beginning, it kind of threw me off because it just didn’t feel the same, and with everything being so loud. Especially last year, it was a struggle with the masks because I normally read lips, so yeah, it was kind of hard. It’ll be so loud I have to worry when they call something, and I’m like, what are we doing? But my teammates are really good about letting me know what’s going on.”
Abby said she hopes that by the time she enters college, technology will advance and waterproof options will be available, though she is not letting that hold her back through all of her accomplishments so far.
“We are so proud. She’s my hero and I’m 40, and she’s 17. She’s just an all-around awesome kid,” Eads said.
