LAKEPORT — Tell her she can”t do something and she”ll prove you wrong. That”s just Jessica Asbury.
Asbury, 16, lives for sports and excelled at three of them during her recently completed junior year at Clear Lake High School. That she was once told she wouldn”t be very good at one of them hasn”t slowed her down in the slightest.
A volleyball, basketball and track standout for the Cardinals during the 2010-11 sports season, Asbury is the Lake County Record-Bee female Athlete of the Year.
“I just love sports … watching it, playing it,” said Asbury, the daughter of Marianne and Terry Asbury of Kelseyville.
The oldest of fraternal twins — by 22 minutes over sister Kim — Asbury remembers the summer of her freshman year when she was attending a basketball camp in Berkeley. A man associated with the camp offered Asbury this piece of advice when summing up her skills.
“He said, ?You suck,”” Asbury said. “I remember telling Kory (Reynolds, then her JV but now her varsity coach at Clear Lake) and he told me, ?Don”t listen to him.””
Asbury didn”t. This past season for the Cardinals she led the team in, among other things, scoring at 11.8 points a game, an improvement of nearly eight points a game from her sophomore year, her first at the varsity level, when she averaged 4.0. She also had the best single-game total (33) among Lake County players, female and male.
“I want to get MVP in basketball,” Asbury said with an eye toward her senior season, which is a tall order given that the North Central League I returns to eight teams next season (no more North and South divisions) and given that the Cardinals struggled mightily this past season at 2-6 in league and 9-12. Still, it was an improvement from 7-17 during Asbury”s sophomore season.
Asbury”s resume for the Cardinals during the 2010-11 sports season includes All-League first-team honors in both volleyball and basketball. In track, Asbury qualified for the North Coast Section Class A championships in four different events in just her second year of being involved in the sport.
“I really, really want to make it to Berkeley (the Meet of Champions) in track in the hurdles next year,” Asbury said. “I know it will be tough, but that”s what I want.”
That trip to Berkeley, Asbury concedes, would be a lot better than her last trip there to the basketball camp.
As a middle hitter for Clear Lake”s volleyball team, Asbury led the team in a variety of categories, namely kills and blocks, and it”s in that sport where she sees herself playing college ball one day.
A handful of universities are interested in her now though they can”t make formal contact with her until her senior year at Clear Lake.
“I want to play volleyball in college,” Asbury said.
While the Cardinals had high hopes of contending for the NCL I South title in volleyball during the fall of 2010, the team never formed into a cohesive unit, thanks in part to some internal bickering, according to Asbury.
“I think it”s going to be better next season,” Asbury said.
While summer has brought the end of the high school sports season for most athletes now working or enjoying warm summer days, Asbury has simply shifted gears.
“I”m playing volleyball and basketball,” said Asbury, who is part of the AAU 18 Aftershock volleyball club in Santa Rosa.
In basketball, Asbury is participating on a summer team led by her varsity coach, Reynolds, and she said the returning seniors stand to be much improved. A crop of new varsity players should also help the Cardinals improve their win-loss record next season.
Asbury said she can”t remember a time when she wasn”t playing sports of some kind. She”s been involved with organized basketball since the fourth grade and with organized volleyball since the eighth grade. Asbury added track to her repertoire as a sophomore.
“All my friends did it (run track) and it seemed like there was less drama,” Asbury said.
In addition to running the 300 low hurdles, she competes on the 4×100 relay team, in the high jump and in the long jump.
A strong student as well, Asbury carries a 3.5 GPA and said one of her favorite classes is chemistry and one of her favorite teachers is Ken Hook, a chemistry and physics instructor at Clear Lake as well as a former longtime basketball coach at the school.
“I didn”t use to like science,” Asbury said. “But Mr. Hook made me love it. I”m going to take his physics class next year.”
English teacher Dawna Rose is another of her favorites.
“She made me like English like no one ever before,” an appreciative Asbury said.
While Asbury is a self-starter in all things sports, she has plenty of people in her corner, sources of motivation if you will.
That group includes her parents and sister, her varsity coaches — Reynolds in basketball, Marci Psalmonds in volleyball and Lars Ewing and his assistant coaches in track, good friends Brianna Dutcher, Vanessa Tullos, Emily Wingler and Josef Hoeck, and positive role models such as Julie Reynolds, Phil Psalmonds and Doug and Trish Wingler.
While playing sports throughout the school year and keeping her grades up might seem like a tough task, Asbury said it isn”t so.
“Sports help me do better in school,” Asbury said. “Sports will help me get scholarships and you can”t get scholarships unless you have the GPA.
“If you start cutting sports, all you”ll see is a lot of gangs.”
Not surprisingly, Asbury”s free time ? what there is of it ? is spent hanging out with friends, most of whom are athletes themselves, and taking care of her six dogs and four cats.
Looking ahead to college one day, Asbury said she wants to pursue a field of study that keeps her in and around sports.
“Maybe a sports nutritionist,” Asbury said. “I just know I want to do something where I”m not indoors all the time.”
