DUVAL COUNTY, Texas — Three sisters. Three sports. One birthday.
Ysela, Gabriela, and Daniela Salinas are 17-year-old triplets competing side by side on the softball, basketball, and volleyball teams at Freer High School — and they've been doing it since they were kids.
For Freer ISD Athletic Director Coach Fran Adami, the trio is something she's never seen before in nearly five decades of coaching.
"First set of triplets ever… I've been doing this for 47 years," Adami said.
The sisters each play a different role on the field, but their bond goes well beyond the game. When Gabriela tore her ACL and couldn't play, she didn't step away from her team.
"Whenever Gabi wasn't able to play - she was on the bench - she was there coaching us and helping me and Dani out there in the back row. I think it was pretty nice that we have each other," Ysela Salinas said.
For Gabriela, being part of a trio at Freer is something she doesn't take for granted.
"It's a different feeling. It's different because there's no other triplets here but us. It's good to know that I have my sisters there for me at any time," Gabriela Salinas said.
And while people sometimes struggle to tell them apart — even mistaking them for twins — the sisters say they share something that goes deeper than appearances.
"I mean people think it's crazy like - you know - sometimes people come up to us and ask us if we're twins cause they look more alike. And we're like no we're triplets," Daniela Salinas said.
When asked if they share a cosmic connection, the answer was unanimous.
"I feel it." "Me too." "Yes." "We do," the sisters said.
Even Adami has had to find her own workaround to keep track of them.
"If they don't have their uniforms on and they're out there flashing around and stuff - it is very hard to tell them apart. Cause they do move very much alike, but I know their numbers, so now I know," Adami said.
The Salinas triplets are looking forward to another year at Freer High School — and another year of what fans have come to call triplet-mania athletics.
I'm Melissa Trevino, your neighborhood news reporter in Freer.
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