PRAIRIE GROVE (KFSM) - The Prairie Grove Tigers girls’ basketball team has a lot to prove this season.
Just two years ago they lost a state title by a point, and made a playoff appearance last year. Now, they're a young team and which also lacks in height on their roster.
“We're so young with no seniors, it's kind of our red shirt year,” coach Kevin Froud said. “We're playing a lot of Harbor, Southside, and Northside teams, Rogers a good Farmington a lot of good competition to prepare us for our conference and for hopefully regionals and state.”
But, leading this team is the Mattie and Taylor duo. Both girls average 10 or more points per game. You'd never tell by looking at them, but they're twins.
“It's different,” junior guard Mattie Hartin said. “I mean we've been playing together for so long. She's just a good teammate. We just know kind of what to do, and kind of play well together.”
“We've just been playing for a long time together,” junior guard Taylor Hartin said. “We don't have where we can read each others mind or anything.”
Watching these two work together on the court, you'd think they could.
“No, they're really different. One's right handed, one's left handed. One has kind of blonde hair, one has kind of brown hair. They both play the guard spot but, you know, there is some similarities but there's a lot of differences,” Froud said.
The Hartin twins have been playing the sport since second grade. Now as juniors, they are trying to help the Tigers make another run at a state title.
“Getting to the regional tournament and state tournament and trying to follow the tradition. Try to be the best that we can be to keep the tradition going,” Taylor said.
Although these girls have a lot of promise ahead of them in this sport, this season keeping the winning tradition is their main goal at Prairie Grove.