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A very sweet identity crisis for Wauconda football

In their struggle to find the perfect Halloween costumes a couple of years ago, brothers Matt and Andrew Nolan thought that they'd finally come up with a great 11th-hour idea.

It was actually pretty clever. And cost-effective.

"I drew a mole on my face, and Andrew covered up the mole on his face," Matt Nolan said. "That was it. But we thought it was funny.

"It turned out that a lot of people wouldn't give us candy. They thought we didn't bother to dress up."

The Nolans are identical twins, and "dressed up" as each other.

Their very subtle Halloween transformation clearly was lost on candy-givers in the neighborhood, who thought that the Nolans looked exactly as they always did.

Then again, many people can't tell which Nolan is which even when they are dressing as themselves. The mole on Andrew's face is one of the few ways people who know them well can tell them apart.

Thank goodness for their jersey numbers in football.

It's a foolproof way for their teammates and coaches at Wauconda to know who is who.

Interestingly, this is a problem at Wauconda that goes beyond the Nolans. This season, the Wauconda varsity roster happens to include three sets of identical twins: the Nolans, who are sophomores, Andry and Hendry Nevski , also sophomores, and Nick and Zac Lopez, juniors.

"It's definitely a unique situation," said Wauconda coach Dave Mills, who is, crazily enough, adding yet another set of twins to the mix. His daughter Kasey will be giving birth to twins in April. "I'd say about 80 percent of the kids and all the coaches still get mixed up with all the twins. They all look very similar, and in practice it gets really tough because we don't have numbers on our practice jerseys. Sometimes, you have to go by shoes, or haircuts or something like that.

"But just when you get the hair thing down, someone goes and gets a haircut. That's what happened with the Lopez brothers. One had longer hair, now they both have the same haircuts. They even talk the same. They're the most similar. It's almost impossible to tell the Lopez twins apart."

At least none of the twins are playing the same position. In fact, neither pair of brothers are even playing on the same side of the ball. They are all trying to carve out their own identities.

Zac Lopez is an offensive lineman while brother Nick is a linebacker.

Matt Nolan is a tight end and brother Andrew is a defensive end.

Andry Nevski is a running back and Hendry is a cornerback.

"It's good that we play different positions," Hendry Nevski said of his brother Andry. "If we were trying to play the same positon it would be hard because we would have to compete for the spot and we already compete for everything, even the stupidest things, video games, school-related stuff, even what people say about us. If someone says something nice about me, I'll kind of rub it in his face."

While the sibling rivalry between twins is probably heightened, being a twin also means having a very unique built-in support system.

"We always want to be better than the other, but we always push each other to do our best," Matt Nolan said. "He (Andrew) is the closest person to me. We've been together our whole lives."

Said Hendry Nevski: "At first, Andry and I were a little scared to do stuff with the varsity since we're just sophomores. I think it helped that we could kind of rely on each other and support each other. We didn't have to worry about doing it alone up on the varsity."

None of the six twins are varsity starters yet, but all get significant playing time and should be key contributors/starters by next season. For now, they're all enjoying the time with their brothers, and their unique situation at Wauconda.

"This is something I wouldn't expect to see again for a while…three sets of twins on the same team," Hendry Nevski said. "It's very cool and I'm just happy to be a part of it."

pbabcock@dailyherald.com

• Follow Patricia on Twitter: @babcockmcgraw

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