Prep profile : Seeing is not believing with Trojan twins

The upstart Post Falls High girls basketball team has a set of twins on its roster.

And no, oh casual observer, those Trojan twins are not Denise Schmidt and Sean Topp.

Though Schmidt and Topp, both tall and blond-haired with similar features, are frequently assumed siblings, starting post Denise and reserve guard C.J. Schmidt are in fact the twins – fraternal, in this case.

“When people hear there are twins on the team, if they don’t know us, they automatically think that it’s me and Sean,” Denise said. “It makes sense, because we look so much alike, and it’s so funny, because we even have boyfriends with the same name.

“Sometimes I’ll even get called Sean, like the other day at the Sandpoint game, I was shooting my free throws and the announcer said, ‘Sean Topp at the line.’ “

As for the possibility of Post Falls’ postseason success, Denise sends out one clear message.

“You need to put this in the newspaper: When Lake City almost beat Coeur d’Alene earlier in the season, (LC coach Darren) Taylor said, ‘The south is going to look at the newspaper and see there’s more than just one good team from the north,” Denise recalled, getting a bit riled up. “We read that and we’re, like, ‘Wait a minute – there’s more than just two teams from the north.’

“We almost beat Coeur d’Alene – we only lost by two and they were No. 1 in the state.”

Sister C.J. explained the secret of this relatively inexperienced Trojans team, which gets another shot at the Vikings tonight at 6.

“We’ve stepped it up from last year,” said C.J., a little shorter and a lot more brown-haired than Denise. “We’re short on seniors, but we’ve got a lot of younger players who are filling those spots and picking it up for all of us.

“We’ve got the team chemistry that we didn’t have last year – we’re all really good friends, we’re working well together and probably the biggest thing is that we’re having fun.”

But enough about the boring basketball stuff. As with any set of twins, the most interesting thing is discovering which is the evil one.

“I would say I have to be the evil twin,” C.J. fessed up. “I try and play pranks on everyone and try to trick them.

“I throw their shoes in the trash and stuff like that – it’s just joking around, but it helps keep things light.”