By Rubin E. Grant
During its season-ending banquet, the Mountain Brook High School girls lacrosse team handed out good-natured awards just for fun.
At the event last month, junior defender Ashby Russell received a paper plate that read: “Most Likely To Win Two State Championships in 48 Hours.”
“The awards are just inside jokes,” Russell said with a laugh.
But hers was slightly inaccurate. She won two state championships in a span of 24 hours — and in two different sports.
Russell helped the Spartans capture the AHSAA Class 6A girls outdoor track and field state championship May 2-4 in Gulf Shores and then helped the Mountain Brook girls win the state lacrosse championship on May 4 at Hoover’s Buccaneer Stadium.
“It was a surreal experience,” Russell said. “I feel so blessed. I couldn’t have done it without my coaches and teammates.”
Russell began her remarkable feat that Friday by running a leg on the Spartans’ 4×800-meter relay team that finished first with a time of 9:25.51. The other members were Callie Kent, Georgia Jane Stuckey and Kennedy Hamilton.
“We ran really well,” Russell said. “To win gold in the 4×800 and win a personal title was great.”
Russell didn’t have much time to celebrate because that Saturday, Mountain Brook was taking on Spain Park in the lacrosse championship game. So, with the events she competed in complete and the final day of the state track meet mostly field events, she drove home from Gulf Shores Friday night.
“I knew I needed a good night of sleep because I was going to need a boatload of energy for the lacrosse game,” Russell said.
Sufficiently reinvigorated, Russell spearheaded a strong defensive effort as the Spartans defeated Spain Park 23-7, outscoring the Jaguars 13-0 in the second half, to win their fourth consecutive state lacrosse crown and finish the season 15-0.
“It was an unreal weekend,” Russell said. “I think it was just adrenalin. Afterward, I said to myself, ‘What have I done?’’’
Just as soon as the lacrosse game ended, Russell’s mother, Gretel, came over and told her the track team had just clinched the state championship for its third consecutive outdoor title.
“That was so cool,” Russell said. “The girls on the track team were celebrating winning the blue map (state championship trophy) and we were celebrating our (lacrosse) win at basically the same time.”
Family of Runners
Russell’s victory on the track wasn’t on the radar until recently, although she comes from a family of runners. Her dad, Stephen, was part of cross-country and track state championship teams at Mountain Brook from 1988 to 1990. Her older sister Molly and older brother Denton also ran track for the Spartans recently, and she has a younger sister Caroline who runs and will be on the varsity track team next season. Her cousin Russell Galloway also ran track at Mountain Brook and in college at Birmingham-Southern.
Despite her family’s track tradition, it’s only in the past two years that Ashby Russell began to take it more seriously.
“Track was definitely not my best sport,” Russell said. “I enjoyed running, but at the time I also did volleyball. Track was always my extra sport to get me in shape for lacrosse. But now I’ve grown to love it as its own separate thing, and I’ve gotten to be around some insane runners like Lucy Benton and Mary Katherine Malone.”
Benton and Malone just graduated in May and will run in college, Benton at Baylor and Malone at Auburn.
Because of her increased interest in track, last summer the multi-talented, 5-foot-9 Russell decided to give up volleyball, the sport her mother played at Karns High School in Knoxville, Tennessee, and in college at Sewanee.
An athletic outside hitter and middle hitter, Ashby Russell helped Mountain Brook win Metro volleyball titles as an eighth grader and freshman. She played on the high school junior varsity as a sophomore and was pulled up to the varsity team at the end of the season.
“I had played volleyball for so long and loved it, but my plate was full with sports and my studies, so I had to take something off the plate and it was volleyball,” Russell said. “My mother was a little disappointed because she coached me when I started playing in the third grade, but she was cool with my decision.”
Lacrosse Is the First Love
Besides, lacrosse is Russell’s first love. She started playing in the fifth grade when her friend Emily Dean suggested it to her.
Almost immediately, Russell took to the game.
“I came to practice and fell in love with it,” she said. “It’s fast-paced, high energy and you’re always running. I love the team aspect of it, too. I’ve grown up playing lacrosse with some of these girls for six years.”
After trying out attacker and midfielder, Russell found her niche as a defender.
“I love defense,” she said. “It’s the reason I play lacrosse. There’s an art of defense. It definitely forces you to have a strong lacrosse IQ and to see the entire field.”
Russell has developed into a top-notch defender and was named first-team All-State for the second time this spring.
“Ashby can stop anybody on the field,” Mountain Brook coach Tom Lewis said. “She’s athletic, but she’s also smart. She can see a play developing and immediately reacts.”
Russell, a rising senior, hopes to play lacrosse in college. Last weekend, she planned to visit Chapman University, an NCAA Division III program in Orange, California, for its prospects day.
“I don’t want to commit to a Division I school because the sport would take up all of my college life,” she said. “If I am able to play in college, I want it to be a Division III school or on a club team.”
