For a long stretch of time, Ashley Adamson solved challenging puzzles and learned how to crochet. She got so good she was even able to weave herself a blanket.
Good stuff, right?
Wrong.
Adamson was forced to seek those activities to fight boredom while recovering from surgery for a torn ACL and meniscus suffered during the last preseason scrimmage of her junior year with Steinert High’s basketball team.
On Dec. 12, 2021, Adamson jumped up to pass a ball and “a girl came into my landing space and took out my (right) leg.” It was originally diagnosed as a sprained ACL, so Adamson taped it and went out to play 10 days later.
It was a disaster. Whenever she would turn or cut she tumbled to the ground in pain, whether someone was near her or not.
Ashley returned to the doctor and an MRI showed the tears. Surgery was originally scheduled for January, but the hard- luck kid got Covid, and the operation was put off until Feb. 1.
She embarked on a long process of rehab, where all she could do was watch her Spartan teammates in the winter and keep score for her AAU team in the summer.
Finally, the 5-foot-11, rail-thin senior swingman was cleared this past November, just prior to this season.
This time, it was good stuff.
Adamson has come back with a vengeance. Heading into the 15-9 Spartans first-round Central Jersey Group III tournament game with Brick Memoria Feb. 20l, she led Steinert in scoring (11.0 points per game) and rebounding (5.3 per game), 3-pointers (52) and blocked shots (15). She was fourth in steals with 60, and also had 25 assists.
“I was worried I wasn’t going to remember how to do things the way I used to,” Adamson said. “But I think I’m maybe even improved from where I was before.”
Steinert coach Kristin Jacobs won’t argue that point.
“Ashley is the best basketball player we’ve had in the program for at least the last four or five years here,” she said. “We’ve learned that when Ashley is not on the court, that there’s a lot of things we don’t do as well. That’s why we talk to her about staying out of foul trouble.”
Jacobs has liked what she has seen from Adamson for a long time. As a referee in the Hamilton PAL, the veteran coach first noticed her because “she had some really cool socks.”
As a kid, Ashley was constantly changing sports, be it soccer, softball, baseball, swimming, gymnastics or dancing. Eventually, one of her best friends in elementary school coaxed her into going to Jacobs’ summer camp after fifth grade.
The coach eventually convinced Adamson to go out for the Mid-Jersey Mavericks’ AAU program that she coaches. Ashley played for former Nottingham coach Sharon Conover and began to grow as a player.
“The only practicing I had done was with PAL, and that’s mostly coached by parents,” Adamson said. “Going to the Mavericks, there was a real coach who knew what they were doing. We had practice twice a week and games on the weekends. It was just the experience of starting to get it.”
Adamson made the Steinert the JV as a freshman and got to play in two varsity games.
“I was really nervous to try out,” she said. “I didn’t think I was gonna make the team. I would have been happy to make the freshman team.”
A year later, she played all 24 games and averaged a modest 2.5 points and 1.3 rebounds, but she was learning how to play at the varsity level. Then came last year’s heart-breaker, when Ashley turned to puzzles, crocheting and the internet.
“There is an ACL (injury) club on twitter and I followed them,” Adamson said. “They shared stories of how they were doing, what they recommended. It helped me.
“And just talking to other people. There’s a lot of people in my life who tore their ACL or had some big injury. Especially two of my most recent AAU coaches. One had an achilles tendon tear, the other had something else in the elbow. Both of them talked me through a lot of it.”
When Adamson was finally cleared on Nov. 12, she tried to make up for what she missed in the past year all in two weeks.
“She was frustrated,” Jacobs said. “She wanted to be further along with her ACL recovery than she was. She went too hard, too soon and we actually had to pull her back a little. We had conversations where I said ‘Do I care, do I want you to play this year? Absolutely.’ But what’s important is she has a collegiate career ahead of her and that’s what we want to make sure we focus on, that she keeps her opportunity to do that.
“The problem was, she had been practicing playing for about a month before (Steinert’s practice). But it’s different when it’s every day you gotta wake up and your body has to re-evaluate the muscles – not just the knee but everything that comes with practicing every day.”
Adamson, who was one of three Steinert players to suffer ACL injuries last year, admitted she was in a bit of a rush to be normal.
“I definitely was trying to do too much,” she said. “I played in one tournament the week before the season started, I went too hard and sprained some muscles behind my leg.”
When she was finally able to go at a better pace, Ashley was surprised to see that she was not too rusty.
“It’s not as bad as it could have been,” she said. “As I was able to do more and more things coming back, I was able to join in some things at practice. I could stand still, do a little layup shooting, then join some of the passing drills and eventually I was able to start sprinting with them.”
Of course, there was always that concern about whether she would be the best version of herself when she actually played a game. Any doubts were erased after an opening-day loss to Trenton, when Adamson collected 10 points, 13 rebounds and five steals. Two games later she bagged a career high 24 points against Hamilton West, starting a binge in which she hit double figures in eight of the next nine games.
Heading into the states, Adamson scored doubles in 16 games and had three games of 10 rebounds or more. Her rebounding total is fairly impressive considering she is more of a perimeter player.
“She’s a shooter trying to teach herself how to drive more to the basket,” Jacobs said. “She was a little nervous, as anyone would be following the injury. I’m not sure she was a think-first drive player before the injury. It was sort of shot settling, but she’s trying to evolve her game. She wants to be better, she wants to add those elements.
“She’s not necessarily a post player. Can she get a rebound or get a putback? I would say absolutely because of her size. She gets in the weight room but still has a way to go there. I would say primarily she’s a three guard shooter. When we put her in the post defensively she just sees everything. She knows the game.”
Adamson is trying to evolve her game for a reason, as she will be playing for Division III Elizabethtown University in Pennsylvania next year. The Blue Jays actually contacted her as a freshman and, fortunately, maintained interest even when Ashley was sidelined.
“I was worried about that for the first,” she said “But they reached out to me and told me I would get through the injury and it would not change their mind whatsoever.”
Elizabethtown is a good fit as it offers Adamson the accelerated program in occupational therapy that she is seeking.
“Occupational Therapy usually takes seven years, I wanted to do it in six, and a lot of schools don’t have that,” she said. “So that narrowed down my options very much.”
Ashley became interested in OT when “I got dragged along” with her brother to his sessions when they were younger. She observed how much fun both the patients and staff were having.
“They were rehabbing and having so much fun with it,” Adamson said. “It wasn’t like “We have to go.’ They really wanted to go. It just looked like fun, working with kids and letting them have fun while learning different things.”
Sounds like the perfect position for the affable Adamson. And she may even be able to add crocheting into those therapy sessions.
Ashley Adamson has recovered from an ACL tear to lead Steinert girls’ basketball in points, rebounds, three-pointers and blocks per game. (Photo by Rich Fisher.),
