Jenny Jansen isn’t a basketball player.

She’s a softball player who plays basketball.

That distinction makes her career on the hardwood unique and more impressive than it already was.

And it was plenty impressive to begin with.

Jansen earned her second straight Class 4 all-state honor this month after averaging 16.9 points and 6.5 rebounds for a Warrenton team that won its third straight district championship and first conference title in 20 years.

“As a freshman I never planned to be all-state in a sport other than softball, so being able to attain that is really awesome,” she said, “and being able to do it twice isn’t something many people get to accomplish.”

Jansen made her name on the softball field.

As a freshman in 2013 she led the Warriors with a .513 batting average, 41 hits and 16 doubles to go along with her 30 RBIs and two home runs.

Her stat line was good enough for an all-state selection that fall, and she was named to the team four straight years.

With a busy summer schedule and college recruiters hanging around, basketball became secondary — and rightfully so.

“She put a lot of time and effort into her softball game, and that’s why she’s at the level she’s at,” Warrenton Head basketball Coach Greg Williams said. “And you wonder what level she could have been at if she did the same with basketball, but she’s at the school she wanted to be at (Southern Illinois-Carbondale) and she’ll have a great career there.”

“I think about that every once in a while,” Jansen said. “I think I would have tried to be more of a guard and try to play in college somewhere. I’m sure I could have been better, but I just love softball so that was never going to happen.”

She played a handful of summer basketball games early in her career, but quickly turned back to softball almost exclusively.

“I played select basketball my freshman and sophomore year so I could play and get experience,” she added. “But once I got that experience I just wanted to focus on softball and have basketball be the second option.”

She led Warrenton in nearly every category as a junior, including points (17), rebounds (8.1) and shooting percentage (58.3) as the program captured its second straight district title.

It was the 2015 championship over Kirksville, however, that she remembers most.

“The first district championship that we won my sophomore year was my favorite,” she said. “It was a great game, and being able to win it with the seniors that year was really cool.”

Despite the lack of off-season work, she continued to improve her game as an upperclassman.

“She just kept getting better,” Williams said. “She added the 3-point shot to her game, and she’ll leave here with quite a legacy. She’ll leave with 1,779 points and the school record. Whenever chips were down and we needed to make a play, Jenny was there doing it. She’s the best competitor I’ve ever coached, and we’re really going to miss her.”

The consensus is that Jansen is also the best athlete in school history.

And while that title can be open to debate, there is no arguing she is the most decorated athlete to play for Warrenton.

Six all-state appearances in four years sealed that contest.

“It’s really cool that people think that highly of me,” Jansen said. “I wasn’t handed that, I worked really hard over the last four years and I’m just really competitive, and that helps you be successful. I hope that helps other people be successful because I want this school to be in a place where we keep winning. That’s what I came here four years ago wanting to do.”