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closeSTATE COLLEGE — Sometimes Katelyn and Kelsey Gill do separate from each other.
CDT file photos/Craig Houtz
State College seniors Kelsey (44), top, and Katelyn Gill (43), above, have played a major role in the Lady Little Lion soccer team’s 11-1 start to this season.
One could be standing near midfield while the other might be down next to the net on the soccer pitch.
Or maybe one of them is on the bench taking a breather.
That’s about as far apart as they get.
Otherwise, State College’s Gill twins are practically inseparable.
They share a car and room, attend all the same classes, play the same sports, plan to attend the same college majoring in education so they can teach in the same school and coach the same teams.
“Other than going to the store,” Katelyn said. “We might do that separately.”
Yet they are still tethered. “If she goes to the store, usually we’re texting,” Kelsey said. “We say, ‘Mom needs this,’ or something. We’re always communicating.”
There is an undeniable connection for the two seniors, who often are referred to, or summoned, merely as “Twins.”
They also have played a major role in the State College girls’ soccer team’s impressive season, which improved to 11-1 Saturday with a 2-1 win over Springdale, the No. 1 team in the state in Class AA.
Head coach Kevin Morooney moves them around, wherever their skills can be most useful for that day’s opponent, but usually Katelyn is a defender and Kelsey is a midfielder or forward.
“They’re solid,” Altoona coach Pat McKinney said after Kelsey scored twice in a 6-0 Lady Little Lion win Wednesday. “They reflect the rest of the team. They’re fundamentally sound, they move well in space and they put shots on frame. They’re dangerous.”
Kelsey leads the team with seven goals and six assists, while Katelyn has one of each, but their impact goes beyond who’s putting the ball in the back of the net.
“Having both of them available to us is really quite powerful,” Morooney said. “Really, though, one of their biggest contributions is rarely seen by anyone other than me and their teammates is their work rate at practice. If we’re doing a small side of something in practice and they’re involved, we get something out of it because their work rate is so high, it forces everybody else’s work rate to be high. It’s absolutely consistent ... for the entire season.”
The work ethic comes from their parents, who have hammered the team concept into the girls since they first started playing the game. The same could even be said for their older siblings, including Meghan, a red-shirt sophomore on the Penn State women’s team. She was a walk-on with the program and did not come with the national accolades like many of her teammates, but head coach Erica Walsh has made a point of getting Meghan on the field because of that work ethic, though the career has been hampered by knee injuries.
“It’s not about scoring, it’s about the team,” their mother, Joy, said. “If you score, great, if you defend, great. Whatever you can do to contribute is what’s important.”
The strength of the family bond is strong as well. Stephanie, now a freshman at Penn State, comes to most of their home matches and Meghan comes when she can, even with the extra load of Division I athletics.
The Gill girls grew up in Lock Haven and were part of the youth soccer system there, following in the footsteps of oldest brother, Chris. All the Gill girls even got to play together for one year in soccer and basketball at Central Mountain, when Meghan was a senior, Stephanie was a sophomore and the twins were freshmen.
Right after Meghan graduated — literally her graduation day — the family moved to State College with their father Jim working at Penn State.
For the most part the twins have not felt any awkwardness toward their former teammates when the rival Lady Little Lions and Lady Wildcats meet in soccer or basketball.
“With some of the girls (it’s strange) and others it’s just another game,” Katelyn said. “We try to play it like another game.”
Both were role players with last season’s basketball team that made it to the PIAA quarterfinals, but both should have much bigger roles this year and have dreams to spread their basketball wings a little more.
While they would love to join Meghan with the Nittany Lions, the alternate dream is to find a small school where they can play both study elementary education, play soccer and basketball — and stick together. Always, they are together.
They were born 15 seconds apart, and despite some small efforts to separate individually around the time they were in first grade, they have pretty much been inseparable.
“Everyone asks us that: ‘Do you ever split up?’” Katelyn said. “No. Everyone makes fun of us because we’re always together.”
“They finish each other’s sentences,” Joy said. “We’ll be in a conversation and they both say the same thing at the same time, identical word-for-word. Everybody starts laughing.”
That connection also translates onto the field. They know where to find the other for a pass, and when something needs to be said they’re not afraid to say it.
“They can communicate with each other the way I wish everybody could communicate with each other,” Morooney said. “They can really be hard on each other but they know they love each other. That connection is never eroded because they’re just pushing each other.”
With long brown hair and blue eyes, they are of course often confused with one another. But after a little conversation the differences arise. Kelsey has the stronger personality and takes charge a little more, while Katelyn is more laid back and passive.
“After my first spring season with them,” Morooney said, “they look like night and day and they act like night and day.”
There have already been numerous college coaches on hand to see them, and quite a few other Lady Little Lions, play this season.
There’s no doubt, wherever they go to college they will decide it together.
Which brings us back to the original question — is there any place where they separate?
“I guess the shower,” Joy laughed. “They just share everything.”
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