Bromenschenkel leaving Purdue Fort Wayne better than she found it

If it seems like Amellia Bromenschenkel’s Purdue Fort Wayne career has been even longer than her name, there’s a good reason for that.

After all, the Mastodons star enrolled at the school halfway through what would have otherwise been her senior year at Illinois’ Mendota Township High School, a decision driven largely by the fact that the Trojans’ 2020-21 campaign was jeopardized by COVID-19 concerns deep into the fall. PFW, meanwhile, was preparing to attempt its schedule.

Furthermore, the NCAA had just announced that a chaotic season where the phrase “out of an abundance of caution” frequently emerged to cancel games, sometimes with mere hours of notice, wouldn’t count against student-athletes’ eligibility.

It was a difficult decision, but ultimately, Bromenschenkel elected to take the sure thing.

“I was obviously really sad to not have my senior year,” she said at the time. “I wanted to have my last year with my team. We were set to be really strong.”

“With everything that’s been going on it was great to be playing basketball again.”

The tricks of recency bias make some of the circumstances of Bromenschenkel’s first turn with the Mastodons a bit hard to fathom.

How long ago was 2020-21? For one thing, it was – technically speaking – Purdue Fort Wayne’s third season of existence, following the 2018 dissolution of an agreement between Purdue University and Indiana University to cooperatively manage the satellite campus. It was also the Mastodons’ first season in the Horizon League, following 13 in the Summit League (mostly under the school’s former IPFW name, of course).

The team itself was also a far cry from what’s become familiar over the last few seasons. Another eventual program legend, Shayla Sellers, was a sophomore on that roster and played prominently, though the current Dons assistant coach had yet to receive the notoriety that eventually lined her upper-class years. The Mastodons’ top two scorers were Sierra Bell, an outstanding all-around guard who also starred defensively, and heady ballhandler Riley Ott.   

Bromenschenkel, as might be expected of someone who conceivably could have been putting the finishing touches on a historically-great high school career and enjoying a series of lasts with her hometown friends, received limited minutes in 14 games.

PFW went 1-22 overall that year, boasting only a late-season victory over fellow HL newcomer Robert Morris. While that record is still cited as a rock bottom of sorts, the fact is that it wasn’t much of an outlier in Mastodons history. The 2020-21 team’s head coach, Niecee Nelson, was 22-116 during her five years in charge, but her immediate predecessors didn’t fare a whole lot better, given the program’s 174-403 record during its first 20 seasons in NCAA Division I.

That began to change during the 2021 offseason, when Maria Marchesano, fresh off leading Mount Saint Mary’s to an NCAA Tournament appearance, returned to her hometown and replaced Nelson. Marchesano was closely followed by important pieces of a now-familiar core, including Jazzlyn Linbo and Audra Emmerson, while Bromenschenkel and Sellers became headlining talents.

There were others, of course. Ott, and her sister Ryin, were around for a couple more years, though injuries affected both careers. Transfers like Sylare Starks and Destinee Marshall added leadership crucial to specific moments in the program’s ascension, while Sydney Graber offered crucial post depth.

“I think we’ve had a great combination of veterans that came up in our program, veterans who have been around college basketball and not in our program, but bring in a lot of valuable experience,” Marchesano observed.

Bromenschenkel, however, was a constant, and Purdue Fort Wayne’s rise through the standings not-so-coincidentally meshed with the rangy guard’s increasing on-court acclaim.

She has been selected to the HL’s all-conference squads at the end of each of the last three seasons, including a first-team nod in 2023-24, a campaign that represented the Mastodons’ breakout after a nine-win effort in Bromenschenkel’s first full go-round and a surprise trip to the league semifinals following her second.

That junior year saw a 23-13 overall record and a return visit to Indianapolis, but it was perhaps most memorable for the Mastodons’ Super 16 run in the WNIT, Purdue Fort Wayne’s first postseason tournament in a decade. Despite losing by four to eventual champion Saint Louis just shy of the quarterfinals, Bromenschenkel had one of the best games of her career with 27 points and 14 rebounds.

It was a fitting launch pad to even bigger things this season, including a 17-game winning streak, and 25 total victories, both program records.

“I’ve loved being a part of this program for all four years,” Bromenschenkel said. “It’s been great to work with the coaches and the players that I’ve had as teammates over the years. It’s been great to turn around the program. There’s just been such great support for us, and I’m super proud of where we got.”

Congratulations to Amellia Bromenschenkel for setting the Mastodon Division I rebound record!

And how cool is it that Mastodon Hall of Famer Robin Scott (who she passed on the all-time scoring list on Wednesday) could be here to present the plaque!#FeelTheRumble #HLWBB pic.twitter.com/utHKeliA1P

— Purdue Fort Wayne WBB (@MastodonWBB) January 25, 2025

If there’s been a blemish to the MBA student’s last laps in a Mastodons uniform, after transforming PFW from a moribund outfit into one of the nation’s best mid-majors (while scoring nearly 1500 points and pulling in more than 700 rebounds along the way), it’s that her all-tournament efforts weren’t enough for PFW’s first-ever Horizon League championship, as the Dons dropped winner-take-all games to Green Bay for both the regular season and tournament crowns over a ten-day span this month.

It’s a bittersweet ending, to be sure, but Bromenschenkel takes solace in the fact that what she helped build transcends any one game or season. After all, Fort Wayne has become a desirable place to play college basketball over the last four years.

That much is clear, thanks to the caliber of student-athlete Marchesano has been able to land through the transfer portal, including HL award winners like Lauren Ross, who said she “wouldn’t have asked for anything different” during her final year of her career, Sydney Freeman, and Jordan Reid.

“We added some great teammates to our roster,” Bromenschenkel said. “I think that helped a lot.”

Recruiting magnetism is a good sign for the Mastodons’ ability to maintain their hard-won success.

Reid, who is likely to be a team leader next season given the expiring eligibility of Bromenschenkel and several others, sees taking those final steps towards a title as simply the next bit of progression for a program that’s already come an awfully long way.

“We’re going to keep growing, and we’re going to keep grinding, and let this season be a foundational piece for legacies to come,” she said.