There are two girls with the last name Soukup on the girls varsity basketball team as well as two girls by the name of Bailess. For the first time in the school’s basketball history there are two sets of sisters playing on the varsity team.

Riley and Maddie Soukup have a sisterly resemblance both in their favorite sport as well as their dark hair and other physical features.

Shelby and Morgan Bailess on the other hand have very little physical resemblance. Shelby, a freshman, towers over her older sister, a senior.

“People always think I’m the older one,” Shelby said.

“It’s annoying,” Morgan added.

But when it comes to basketball the sisters said they play well together.

Maddie and Riley played together in Middle School. And the Bailess sisters have played together on Fall and Summer teams.

“It’s more competitive when it’s your sister, said Maddie, a senior. “Like you can’t let her beat you in sprints.”

“Wait, you never told me that,” responded her sophomore sister Riley. “I don’t think we’re that competitive.”

Yet when it was time to take a picture the sisters could stop shoving each other or messing up the other’s hair.

“Sometimes the competitiveness carries homes,” Shelby said adding that she and Morgan are competitive in most things they do.

“Morgan beat me in the driveway once and I’ve never lived that down,” she said.

Maddie said their father played basketball when he was in school and that the family bonds over basketball.

“Everyone comes to the games and we have our own cheer section,” Maddie said pointing to the bleachers.

Shelby and Morgan don’t have any siblings beside each other so convenient for their parents to have only one game to attend, Shelby said.

When asked what will happen when the seniors graduate and might move away for college, Morgan said the saddest part is “realizing we have to split up our clothes.”
But for now they’re experiencing the pros and cons of sharing a team with a sister.

Pros include having someone to shoot with or knowing her as a player and person better than anyone else on the team.

“It’s easier for me to sense when she’s mad or frustrated or things are going well,” Shelby said.

The younger ones benefit from tips and light coaching from the older sisters which, Shelby said, is nice most of the time.

All four sisters agreed that comments from your sibling seem more personal than those from other players on the team.

“It feels more like criticism when your sister tells you something,” Riley said.

But the best thing about having a sister on the team, is that it’s more exciting when she succeeds, Maddie said. “It’s more fun. It makes you happy and proud.”