Antioch's Reiser twins prefer their impact on the basketball court

The maroon 2010 Ford Edge, Amy and Ashley's car, was totaled.

"She kept us pretty dang safe," Ashley Reiser said. "I love that car."

Fortunately, luckily, unbelievably, amazingly, the passengers were not totaled. Which means Antioch's twin sisters can resume padding their high school basketball point totals. Their assist totals. Their rebounding totals. Their steal totals. Their basketball team win totals.

Ashley knows she and her sister are lucky. Totally.

"I am so thankful and blessed and grateful for my life," Ashley said Tuesday, one day after she and Amy escaped a car accident with seemingly just bumps and bruises. "My mom (Michele) told me the police officer came up to her (after the accident) and said that we are very lucky to have gotten out of there with no serious injuries."

Antioch opened its basketball season on Monday night. En route to their high school, where they were going to board a school bus with their teammates and coaches to head to Vernon Hills for a tournament game, the Reisers' Ford Edge was about to lose an edge.

Amy was driving. Ashley was in the front passenger seat. It was dark. They were eastbound on Grass Lake Road, waiting for traffic to clear so they could turn left onto Rte. 83.

"There was a train coming, too (just east of the intersection)," Ashley said. "The train lights were going off. Three cars had already zoomed past and blew the yellow. So we were in the middle of the intersection."

The light turned red. Amy then turned left.

"I saw a big truck coming our way," Ashley said. "He just T-boned us. It was pretty bad."

Ashley got tossed to her side. Fortunately, both twins were buckled up. Ashley was wedged in the car, so the police had to break the car window to get her out.

Miraculously, neither girl was seriously injured.

"I am a little bit bruised on my right side," Ashley said. "My arm is pretty bruised and my ribs. ... Amy was OK. She just had a little whiplash and was sore."

The twins, who just turned 18, chose not to go to the hospital. Instead, their mom drove them from the accident scene to Dr. Scott Reiser's chiropractor's office in Lake Villa. Dad examined his two daughters.

"He evaluated us and gave us both an adjustment," Ashley said. "Amy felt fine enough to go play, but I had been crying, so I had a bad headache. I didn't know if that was from a concussion. I was just mentally out of it and not ready to play."

So Antioch's school bus, filled with the Reisers' teammates and coaches, picked up Amy at her dad's office and headed to Vernon Hills.

Ashley, for maybe the first time in her life, wasn't up for playing basketball.

"I'm more emotionally hurt, I guess you could say, because I had to miss my first game," said Ashley, who, other than senior night, had started every game in her varsity basketball career, which started her freshman year. The 5-foot-4 point guard heads into her senior year with 1,111 career points. Last season, she averaged 15.2 points, 7.4 assists, 4.7 rebounds and 3.1 steals per game.

"That was pretty upsetting."

At Vernon Hills, the Sequoits, who have 79 wins in three years with the Reisers, lost to Sycamore in overtime. All Amy did was score 20 points, giving her 967 in her career.

"She scored half of those (20 points) for me, she said," Ashley said with a laugh.

Antioch was scheduled to resume the Vernon Hills tournament on Thursday against Lake Forest Academy. If it was up to her, Ashley said she would play. If it was up to her mom, the story might be different.

Regardless, Ashley plans on being back on the basketball court. And soon.

And she'll be back driving ... to the basket. With Amy next to her.

Lucky us.

jaguilar@dailyherald.com

• Follow Joe on Twitter: @JoeAguilar64