All (but one) in the family

Sisters Ally (from left), Anne and Katy Peetz pause for a photo before their game against South Dakota State.

By MICHAEL STACY
Sports Editor

Backyard soccer games between the Peetz sisters at their childhood home always seemed to start amicably enough.

“It definitely was something that started out light and fun, like ‘Oh, let’s go kick a ball in the backyard,’” junior forward Katy Peetz said.

It’s funny, though, how a hard slide tackle can knock the innocuous right out of a game.

Armed with all kinds of ability and competitive drive to match, the precociously talented Peetz sisters often found that their games ended up as hard-hitting and competitive as they had begun lighthearted and friendly.

“[By the end] it was like full out, slide tackle,” Katy said. “We’re just really competitive, so we didn’t want to lose.”

***

“It’s a healthy competitive,” junior defender Ally Peetz said of the friendly sibling rivalry that fueled those heated backyard games and continues to drive the sisters today. “It sounds really bad when I tell people we’re competitive, but it’s not like out of hand or anything.”

On the contrary, the competition has been, by all accounts, a very good thing, helping keep the quartet of sisters in line and fueling them on their journey to the Division I level.

Identical twins Katy and Ally, stalwarts for the Jays the past two seasons, were joined in the college ranks this season by Anne, a freshman midfielder for the Jays, and Anne’s fraternal twin Carly, a freshman forward at Nebraska. For review, that’s two sets of twins from the same family, playing Division I soccer at the same time, for Peetz sake.

But look past the startling statistics and bad puns and you will find that the rarity of what they have accomplished is just part of what makes these twins unique.

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The sort of squabbles that typified the Peetzes’ childhood backyard games certainly ended as they matured and took their skills to a bigger stage, right?

Not quite. The Peetzes’ father, Jeff, laughed as he recalled an occasion when Katy and Ally’s usually friendly sibling rivalry reared its rarely ugly head during practice their sophomore year at Lincoln’s St. Pius X High School.

“Practice was sort of slow, and the girls started to pick up dirt clods and throw them at each other,” Jeff said. “One of them beaned the other one in the side of the face. She wasn’t too happy about that.”

Ally, the victim, responded as any good sister would.

“I cheapshot her back,” Ally said.

A skirmish ensued, and practice came to a halt.

“They had just moved to Pius,” Jeff said. “And I think the Pius kids got the first-hand opportunity to see their intensity.”

***

The intensity and competitive attitude with which the Peetzes approach their sport is still on display on the practice field today just in less, uh, dirty ways.

“The two kids that compete the hardest against each other on the team are those two,” coach Bruce Erickson said of Katy and Ally. “Ally will run a one-mile test, and then Katy will run it, and Katy will run over and ask, ‘What did Ally get?’”

That competitive nature has paid dividends. Take, for instance, that mile test.

“We did all this fitness testing,” Erickson said. “And those three are probably in our top four or five.”

Of course, the Peetzes’ prowess is not limited to mile runs.

Katy, currently sidelined with a bad back, is one of the team’s top finishers. She ranked second on last year’s squad with six goals and draws praise for her playmaking skills.

“Katy’s really creative with the ball,” Ally said, “and she’s selfless. She needs to be more selfish with the ball.”

Ally thrives at the other end of the field, defusing opponents’ attacks. The only returner that started every game last year, she is renowned for her ability to roll with the punches.

“[Ally] is intense — very intense,” Katy said. “She gets knocked down, and she jumps up before she hits the ground.”

While Anne has yet to truly make her mark in her young Creighton career, she has shown flashes of brilliance, netting two goals and impressing her older sisters with her composure.

“It’s like she has eyes in the back of her head,” Ally said. “She makes really good passes that I wouldn’t think of playing because I don’t notice them.”

Of course, the Peetzes have one another to thank for helping develop these skills — and one another to look towards for constructive criticism when the skills aren’t being put to use.

“They’ll be ... honest with me,” Anne said. “So if I’m really playing bad, or I’m doing something wrong, I know that I have someone there to tell me right to my face.”

***

For all their comical on-field clashes, the sisters are as close-knit off the pitch as they are fiercely competitive on it.

“We’re all best friends,” Katy said. “I know it sounds cheesy, but they are my best friends.”

They share not only an appreciation of one another but also an understanding of the unique opportunity they have.

“It’s really cool,” Ally said. “We’re really fortunate to all be good at something at this level.”

Their success is not something the Peetzes take for granted. But, given their history of success together, it’s not an unreasonable expectation, either.

So, thoughts of an NCAA tournament berth and a possible matchup with the rival Nebraska Cornhuskers — and sister Carly — are never far from their minds.

“It would be fun; it would be fun to watch, and it would be fun to play. [It would] be a battle, and [it would] be ugly,” Katy said, “… but in a healthy, competitive way.”

In other words, it would be just like an old-fashioned, friendly Peetz family backyard soccer game.