Opposing coaches aren’t seeing double when they watch the Foothills Falcons crash the boards this basketball season.
They also better get used to it because identical twins Madie and Kalli Turbach are only in Grade 10.
The six-foot twins played a major role in the Falcons winning their first Foothills Athletic Council championship in seven years, said Foothills coach Lana Gwilliam.
“They have gone in and cleaned the boards up for us,” Gwilliam said. “I tell them to go in there and rip the ball away and they do it. They have also improved tremendously offensively as the season went on.”
She added having the Turbachs in the game allowed her to drop the five-foot-eight Amy Wooldridge at guard, teaming her up with five-foot-eight point guard Haley Jensen.
“That means we have four girls on the floor over five-foot-eight, which is quite tall for a high school senior girls’ basketball team,” Gwilliam said.
The added height has helped the Falcons. Highwood Mustang coach Curt Colfer said having to deal with the Falcons’ height advantage was a major factor in losing all three games to Foothills this season.
The Turbachs, who attended Red Deer Lake Junior High School, have been used to coming off the bench and sparking the Falcons with their passionate play.
Kalli was born approximately eight minutes behind Madie on March 10, 1996. Maybe losing that first race resulted in her being the more assertive of the two sisters.
“I am more aggressive,” Kalli said, who is a post. “I’m not reckless or anything, but if there is a loose ball I am going to go for it. I used to foul out all the time. I realized that I have to play a whole game, not just half.”
Madie is used as a power forward.
“I’m a little quicker than Kalli,” she said. “Madie makes a better post because she is more aggressive.”
That doesn’t make Madie a shrinking violet. If there’s a loose ball on the court, both Turbachs will pounce on it like a cat jumping on a catnip-dunked mouse.
That’s one of the reasons they don’t play one-on-one against each other.
“I would say she fouls me all the time,” Madie said with a laugh.
Kalli admitted one-on-one games with her sister aren’t the best idea.
“We get so angry at each other and we start to take each other out,” Kalli said. “It can get very emotional.”
Sure, they can get mad at each other, but they are also each other’s best friend. When they both agreed to try out for the Senior varsity team, there were concerns one might make it while the other wouldn’t.
That is what happened in volleyball when Madie made the Falcons Senior volleyball team.
“At first I was really worried that she was going to be ticked at me,” Madie said. “So it was kind of awkwardly brought up.”
Madie shouldn’t have worried.
“I was really proud of her,” Kalli said. “It was a giant step for her.”
Turns out there was no reason to worry about family squabbles when it came to basketball. Both of the Turbachs made the Senior varsity team as Grade 10 students.
“I felt having them play as Grade 10 students would be beneficial to them for the next two years and they both got a lot of minutes,” Gwilliam said. “They both work hard and are very respectful.”
The “Twin Towers” have created one problem for coach Gwilliam — trying to tell them apart.
“Sometimes I will be talking to them it will be ‘I’m Madie’ or ‘I’m Kalli,” Gwilliam said, “Even with their numbers I can’t tell them apart. What has kept me in it for the whole year is I look at their shoes, as dumb as that sounds. Kalli wears white shoes and Madie wears black shoes.”
