You can be forgiven if you’re seeing double at Cochrane High School Cobras basketball games.
Or triple, or quintuple, etc.
The Cobras basketball program boasts four sets of sisters and two sets of brothers, the younger siblings playing junior varsity and the older in varsity. Throw in Spencer Marchand, the twin brother of JV Cobra girls’ Sharise Marchand, who also has older-sister Alysha playing varsity girls, and you’ve got enough siblings to stock two teams with spares – 13 in total.
“I’ve been here 22 years,” observes CHS athletic director and varsity girls basketball co-coach Rob McNab. “I’ve never seen this. I’ve seen some brothers and a few sisters, but never four pairs of sisters between JV and varsity.
“Never.”
It makes for interesting times courtside.
“The parents have to sit there for four hours a night because all their kids are playing,” cracks McNab, whose daughters make up a quarter of the Cobras sister act. “We’re all getting to know each other in the stands quite well.”
Currently, junior-varsity girls Sharise Marchand, Kaylee Moeller, Melissa Berube and Mikaela McNab play in the early games ahead of their varsity-aged sisters Alysha Marchand, Jenny Moeller, Katrina Berube and Kristen McNab.
Jake Nielson and Evan Perrault play before older-brothers Chace Nielson and Murray Perrault on game nights.
Spencer Marchand is the odd man out, being both Sharise’s twin brother and Alysha’s younger sibling.
Being a football player for the Cochrane Lions bantam club team, Spencer isn’t shy about going to his full-contact game to level the court against his two sisters.
“When we play against each other, he pushes me over and tackles me,” Alysha laughs.
“I don’t push them around, they’re just not strong enough to stand up after a collision,” Spencer counters.
“They teach me a lot,” says Sharise who, like her twin brother, has lost a shooting game or two to her older sister, according to Alysha. Kristen McNab also claims shooting superiority over younger sister Mikaela.
“I like to play because I always beat her,” Kristen insists as younger-sister Mikaela disagrees with those claims. “She’s getting better.”
The Nielson brothers, whose dad Kris coaches the varsity Cobras boys and has coached his sons at the club level with the Cochrane Kodiaks, have grown up together on the court.
“We play pretty differently, I’d say,” older brother Chace Nielson says. “I’m just bigger than him. We go to the gym and play one-on-one. We shoot together, practise together. We play competitively quite a bit.”
But younger brother Jake has been taking notes.
“He has a few moves he’s taught me to do,” Jake says, adding that he’s been known to beat Chace at HORSE on occasion.
“Not a lot of siblings all like to play the same sport and do it together,” Kristen McNab surmises. “So this is kind of cool.”
