Gina and Krystal Hugelier have been playing basketball together for as long as they can remember.
And they don’t want that experience to end when their senior season at York wraps up in the next couple of months. The two want to continue playing together–at least for the next four years
The problem for the Hugeliers, who look alike but are not sure if they are identical or fraternal twins, is that most college coaches want to separate them.
“There’s a bunch of schools that just wanted Krystal,” says York coach Paul Pokryfke, whose team is off to an 19-1 start and a Top 10 ranking. “But they want to go together.”
Janet Rusch, the twins’ mother, says she’s been “up front and honest” with the schools that call. A lot of the coaches are in love the numbers Krystal is putting up. But you can’t have one of her girls without the other.
“Their first priority is that they want to stay together, play together,” Rusch says.
Dr. Louis Keith probably understands their relationship better than most because, like them, he is a twin. He also is the director of the Center for the Study of Multiple Births at Northwestern University.
Keith says the Hugeliers’ decision was unusual, even in the close-knit world of twins.
“You have to understand,” Keith says, “that this is highly untypical, whether it be in athletics or anything else.”
The decision is at the extreme end of the spectrum, he said.
“It cuts our choices down a lot,” says Krystal, who wants to teach. “Most schools have just one scholarship–or a lot of them just said they wanted to offer just one.”
That felt awkward, she says.
“Just a weird situation.”
Krystal is a 5-foot-9-inch senior who has week after week grabbed attention with her scoring. It all started with a double-overtime November victory over Resurrection in which she scored 37 points. Krystal then came up with a season-high 39 against Proviso East, and in York’s stunning victory over Benet, Krystal went for 36.
Against West Suburban Silver rival Oak Park she had 28, and her free throw with 1.1 seconds left gave the Dukes a huge victory on the road. Gina is about an inch shorter and does the other stuff that coaches love. In the victory over Oak Park, Gina had nine points, 10 rebounds and six steals. In the next game, York broke its 10-game losing streak against defending Class AA champion Hinsdale Central when Gina’s two free throws with 5.3 seconds left gave the Dukes a 37-35 victory.
But she’s not the team’s big scorer. Gina is well aware of the attention sister Krystal gets from rolling up point totals.
“Sick of the point thing? Sometimes, but not really,” says Gina, who wants to study criminology. “All the hype doesn’t matter to me. If you get eight assists, that’s 16 points right there. That’s good.”
Not good enough, apparently, for college coaches to treat the Hugeliers like Coco and Kelly Miller, twins who stood out at Georgia and graduated in 2001.
Krystal is averaging 26 points, seven rebounds, four steals and three assists a game. Gina’s averages are nine points, seven rebounds, four steals and six assists.
“If I took Krystal out of the game and left Gina in there by herself, she probably could do the same thing,” says Pokryfke, whose team, which also features Anne Marcellus and Stephanie Kliethermes, may be York’s best since its 1984 state champs.
Gina’s season high of 17 points came against Providence, and she does own a triple-double–11 assists, 11 rebounds and 10 points–against Naperville North.
Including statistics from Immaculate Heart of Mary, where the twins played before transferring to York as juniors, Gina has 1,132 points after her 19 in Saturday’s win over Proviso West. With 31 Saturday, Krystal has 1,946 career points and is about three games from crashing the 2,000-point barrier.
But though most of the top seniors have already made their college commitments, Krystal Hugelier still doesn’t know what college sweatshirt to wear to school.
The twins had visions of playing together for a program like Wisconsin or Drake. But Illinois-Chicago is interested, Krystal says, and Austin Peay is also a possibility.
As for their desire to remain together, Keith says it “may be a defense mechanism in coming to grips with the reality that at some point they’re going to go their separate ways.”
He says they have to answer this question in their own way: How much togetherness do they want and how much individuality do they want? Although he sees their desire to stay together as unusual, he admires it as well.
“Doesn’t that exemplify the twin bond?” Keith says.
