Double trouble: Twins playing sports at Redwood
March 21, 2019
For all athletes, trying out for sports can be stressful, especially in a completely new environment with lots of unfamiliar faces. However, for twins playing the same sport on the same team, this is not the case. Throughout their lives, this has been the unique reality that freshman soccer players Zoe and Mia Curtaz and junior baseball players Jake and Jesse Gassman have been able to experience.
As twins, the Curtaz sisters know how each other play and can tell what their next move is going to be, a key characteristic that is unique to them and beneficial to their performance.
“The best part about it is that if we go to a new thing [camp or tryout] for soccer we have someone with us there and we can also do things no one else can do,” Zoe said.
Throughout their childhood, both pairs of siblings had always been involved in the same sports. From the time they started playing soccer together around eight years ago, the Curtaz sisters have been inseparable on their teams ever since.
Playing in a soccer game, Mia (front) and Zoe (back) Curtaz play together on a competitive team along with playing at Redwood
On their team, both Zoe and Mia play midfield. This position is one that has been beneficial to them as they play close together on the field and are dependent on each others’ moves. Through this, they have been able to use their mental connection to their advantage.
“[We] pass to each other back and forth because we can kind of read each other’s minds and figure out what we’re going to do, and other people can’t really do that,” Zoe said.
Similarly, for the Gassmans, they moved up the ranks of baseball together, starting with T-ball, then to little league and eventually to high school baseball. Now, Jesse pitches for the varsity team and Jake is one of the team’s catchers.
Preparing to pitch the ball, junior Jesse Gassman has an advantage when pitching to brother Jesse who is the catcher.
Seeing that their positions are dependent on one another, both have been able to build off of each other and use their connection to continue becoming more skilled as players.
“It’s even better for me and my brother because I’m a pitcher and he’s a catcher, so when I pitch, I get to pitch to him,” Jesse said. “It’s good because he knows me better than anyone else, so he knows what pitches to call and we can kind of mess with hitters in that kind of way because we’re on the same page, but everyone else doesn’t really know that.”
While there are many benefits to having a twin sibling on the same team, it can be difficult when it comes to the competition aspect of things. Although both sets of siblings have not been faced with a situation where they were pitted against one another or put on seperate teams, there is that possibility, which can be hard for these athletes to understand as they are not normally playing without each other.
Getting ready to catch the ball, junior Jake Gassman and brother Jesse have been on the same baseball team for years on end.
As they continue throughout their high school careers, both Zoe and Mia hope to continue working and pushing each other athletically to reach the skill level necessary for college, potentially at separate schools. Although it would be unfamiliar to them, both the Gassmans’ and the Curtaz’s feel that they are interested in going somewhere separate from their sibling.
“We do everything together, so it’d be weird to be on a different team because that is a big part of our lives, being on a team, so that’d be something new,” Mia said.
