Beimfohr Twins Leading Way for Miller Girls

One of the great strengths of the Millburn girls soccer team this season is there is more than one player who can beat you. At times, however, it may look like it's the same player, but that's because two of the team's top scorers are identical twins.

The feet and heads of twins Katie and Emily Beimfohr will go a long way in determining how far the Millers will go in the state playoffs. The twins have combined for 20 goals and eight assists heading into the playoffs, making up for nearly 41 percent of Millburn's scoring this season.

"We're always together no matter what," Katie said. "Same school, same teams, same friends."

Either Emily or Katie has scored or assisted in 13 of the 17 Millburn's regular season games this season and have helped the Millers to an 11-6 start and to a fifth seed in the North II Group 3 state sectional playoffs. This postseason run, which continues at Mendhem on Friday, will mark the end of the Beimfohrs' competitive soccer careers, as they are not playing soccer at college (for which they are still undecided). And, for the first time since they were 5 years old, they won't be on any club teams this off-season. For the first time in years the off-season will be exactly that for Katie and Emily.

In uniform and on the field, there is a clear difference between the two aside from Katie's number 7 and Emily's number 9. Emily is a center-midfielder who has a knack for winning 50-50 balls and likes to create with her passing. Katie is an attacking forward who likes to run the field and to keep the ball at her feet.

"If she played forward and I played midfield, it's be so apparent that we're not supposed to be in that position," Katie said.

"I think she's just more pretty when she's on the ball, she's just so aesthetic when she's on the ball," Emily said of Katie. "I feel like I'm just more tenacious."

Emily, who had four assists and seven goals heading into the playoffs, is clearly the play maker of the two, while Katie is the play finisher with 13 tallies during the regular season.

"They run differently, they do different things, they have different strengths," said Miller head coach Andy Sones. "Katie likes running with the ball. She's aggressive and she's quick at it. Emily likes passing the ball and they can both hit a shot."

However, off the field, with the exception of a slight height differential (Katie is a half an inch taller) they are nearly mirror images of each other. Emily's hair appears to be a tone lighter than Katie's and there are subtle differences that allow their teammates and coach to tell the difference between them outside of their uniforms.

"I've known them since they were 10," Sones said of the twins. "It used to be harder [to tell them apart] than it is now, but their bodies have grown in different ways... They're both a lot of fun, they both bounce off of each other. I think Emily's a little more relaxed and easy going and Katie is a little more everything has to be a certain way. It's quite funny watching them intentionally wind each other up."

When they play together, which they have been on the same team every year since they were five with the exception of last off-season, both players say that there is a level of silent communication between them.

They just know where the other person is going to be or have a knack for being in the right place at the right time for each other. An example of this came earlier this season in overtime against Montclair where Katie lobbed a corner kick into the middle of a crowded goalie box, finding Emily's head in the crowd for the winner.

"Sometimes we'll be playing and I'll pass the ball and Emily will be right there. Or she'll play me a ball or like on the corner kick when I played the ball, her head was right there," Katie said.

"I don't even hear her name," Emily added. "I don't know if it's my peripheral vision, sometimes I just know where she is. It's freaky... She doesn't like to admit it, but we've gotten a lot closer this year. We used to butt heads a lot more."

For years as adolescents, the twins and their dog would practice playing soccer with each other at home. It was soccer all of the time. But as they've grown and have had extra work, responsibilities and bigger soccer commitments, the Beimfohr household has become a sanctuary away from the game. However, the girls still find ways to compete with each other.

"We're very competitive I think, but I don't keep track of the goals or anything," Emily said. "I know she has definitely more stats... We still compete about school, silently. I always say I want to do better than her for myself and she would always say that she wants to do better than me for herself, but we would never put each other down."

A year ago the Beimfohrs were part of a Miller squad that reached the sectional finals and probably should've won but lost in penalty kicks. This season, expectations were high right away for the girls coming in as the defending county champs with nine returning seniors. Things did not start off very well for the girls this fall, but they managed to right the ship a bit, reaching the county semis and defeating Montclair twice and Livingston once.

"I think we definitely had a rough start and then we picked it up and we played well," Katie said. "We want to peak going into states and get as far as we can. We definitely have big hopes for that."