Mourning Those Who Contributed Much

ADRIAN – Ella Salenbien is very competitive.

And maybe a little stubborn.

Salenbien didn’t want to have to choose which sports to concentrate on at Adrian High School – so she picked them all. Salenbien is on track to graduate this spring with 16 varsity letters for the Maples – four each in volleyball, swimming, basketball and soccer.

“Sometimes a coach, even college coaches, would ask me if I was going to concentrate on swimming and I would say no,” Salenbien said. “I didn’t want to choose. I wanted to play them all.”

Salenbien hasn’t just played sports at Adrian; she’s set records and excelled. This winter, she’s leading something of a re-birth of basketball for the Maples, who are off to a 6-1 start, the best for the school in more than a decade, maybe two.

“It’s exciting,” she said. “We are definitely playing as a team. This is the third or fourth year that a lot of us have played together. We are all very close.”

Salenbien is closing in on 1,000 career points in basketball and is likely to set the Maples career rebounding record.

In volleyball, she finished with more than 1,000 career kills and 1,000 career digs. She holds five school records in swimming. Last spring she set the Adrian assists record in soccer with 17.

Playing four sports requires a lot of time management, communication and cooperation between coaches, which Salenbien says has been great.

“I send out a weekly schedule to my coaches and parents just so everyone knows what’s going on,” she said. “There are days where I might have swimming practice and volleyball practice, so I split my time. It’s never been a problem. I feel like it was a lot my freshman year, but after that I got the hang of it.”

Swimming evolved into her top sport and something she did year-round for years between varsity swimming with Adrian and club swimming, both outdoor and indoor.

“I’d swim for the (Lenawee County) Gators after my high school season,” she said. “I’d train and compete for the state meet, zone meet and national meet, which is in Greensboro, North Carolina. Then I would come back, take a short break, and go into soccer. There’s not a lot of breaks in between seasons. I don’t have a lot of down time.”

Salenbien isn’t one to ask for down time.

“I’m pretty competitive and like to stay busy,” she said.

She started swimming with the Maple Pride program at the age of 7.

“I picked it up fast and enjoyed it,” she said.

She’s developed into a sprinter in the pool. Salenbien finished third in both the 50 and 100-yard freestyles at the Lower Peninsula Division 3 Finals in November.

“I love the pace and jumping in the water and going as fast as I can,” she said. “I’m not a distance swimmer. There is a rush you get. I love anchoring a relay. I love it when I am one or two lengths behind when I dive in and I catch up and pass someone. I am swimming and I can look over and think, ‘I got this.’”

She committed to Hope College for swimming.

“My (college) coach even asked me if I was interested in talking to the volleyball coach,” she said. “I told him that I didn’t think so. I am kind of excited to have the chance to focus on swimming in college and see how I do.”

The daughter of Eric and Sarah Salenbien of Adrian has two younger siblings, both of whom are already deep into athletics. Ella likes to spend the summer at her grandmother’s lake house in the Irish Hills, especially in the water.

“I love tubing,” she said. “I sometimes will take a swim across the lake and back. It’s about two miles.”

Salenbien also works at a nursing home in Adrian and recently received her Certified Nurse Assistant certification.

The 17-year-old is happy to be focusing on basketball right now, especially with the Maples off to such a great start under second-year coach Caylie Boehmer, an Adrian graduate.

“She’s been great,” Salenbien said. “She played college basketball, so she has us practicing like they do in college. She leads us well.”

Boehmer called Salenbien an outstanding athlete and even better human being.

“She has been a huge asset to all the programs at Adrian that she has been a part of, and we are lucky to have her,” she said. “She is an extremely hard worker, fierce competitor and as tough as they come.”

Friday the Maples take on their biggest rival, Tecumseh, the reigning Division 2 champion and heavy favorite in the Southeastern Conference White.

“It’s going to be tough,” Salenbien said. “They are very good. I know a lot of the girls on the team. They are tough, but we have nothing to lose. We are just going to go out and do our best. We’re not going to back down.”

Doug Donnelly has served as a news and sports reporter at the Adrian Daily Telegram and the Monroe News for 30 years, including 10 years as city editor in Monroe. He's written a book on high school basketball in Monroe County and compiles record books for various schools in southeast Michigan. He is now publisher and editor of The Blissfield Advance, a weekly newspaper. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.

PHOTOS (Top) Ella Salenbien swims a race this past season. (Middle) Salenbien (21) elevates for the opening tip at the start of a game against Dundee. (Photos provided by Salenbien family.)