By Blake Chadwick
Entering his eighth season as the head coach of the Ellsworth Bearcats, Josh Homolka has built his program into one of the best in the state.
“We are slowly changing the culture of EHS football,” Homolka said. “There are more and more expectations to be successful each year. You can see that from our high school teams down through junior high and our CKFL (youth) teams. In the last couple of years, our teams have shown you can be successful. That has been a key hump to get over, changing the mindset that we can win consistently. It has been a long process, and we are starting to see the fruits of our labor.”
The Bearcats will continue that process as they have reloaded. They will be led by a good group of upperclassmen, including seniors Daxton Leiker and Landon Johnson, as well as juniors Cooper McGowan and Tucker Goss.
“The main goal of our program is to make the playoffs each year,” Homolka said. “You make the playoffs, and you can truly see where you are as a program. We would like to be in the top two in our district and get a home playoff game. That is much easier said than done in our district. Our district will be very competitive this season.”
To continue to build off of a 9-2 year in 2023, the Bearcats made sure that the offseason would prepare them for success.
“We have had a solid summer,” Homolka said. “Students are pulled in a lot of different ways in the summer. Every summer, they have more and more responsibilities, either for sports, churches, clubs, or other school organizations. We are lucky to have student-athletes involved in a variety of activities. I feel like overall; our student-athletes have handled their schedules very well and made progress as a group.”
