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Junior Abby Luensmann might just be the best athlete you haven’t heard about.

She participates in volleyball, track, and swimming, and also is an honors student. Balancing being a triathlete and an honors student can be extremely difficult, and with the long hours of practice and keeping up with homework, it can become very demanding.

“Sometimes I won’t get home until after 9:00 because I go straight from one practice to another. Add homework onto that, and I end up not having much free time. I’m almost always busy, but I wouldn’t give any of it up,” said Abby.

Luensmann is this month’s Big Man on Campus.

Abby has been doing volleyball for six years now, and swimming and track for the past two. Abby says that she enjoys playing volleyball the most, and it shows.

Abby devotes most of her offseason to playing on a traveling volleyball team, from December through May. The team usually has three practices a week, along with about 10 weekend tournaments. Also, last summer Abby did skill-work with her coach for two days a week and worked in the gym the other two days.

“It’s an all-year round sport for me,” she said.

Abby also excels in swimming as she competes in the 50 and 100 meter freestyle events, and competes on two relay teams. In track, she competes in the 100 meter hurdles, along with being a long jumper and a triple jumper.

Last year, Abby competed in districts for both swimming and track and hopes to be there again this year.

“I hope I can go to Districts again for swimming and track. Next year I also hope the volleyball team makes it to the District playoffs,” said Abby.

You could say swimming and volleyball aren’t as well-recognized as some of the other sports at B-A like football and basketball. But they have the same amount of athletic talent involved. Unfortunately, some athletes at Bellwood do not get the recognition that they deserve.

“Bellwood has always been more of a football school, which is unfortunate because there are a lot of great athletes in other sports that don’t get as much attention,” Abby said. “It doesn’t really bother me if our stands filled for volleyball because I try to just worry about the game.”