How the twins arrived at this moment is another story onto itself. Coming out of Aragon, the Zaslys earned full-ride soccer scholarships to Marist University, a Division I program in New York, even though they never played one minute of high school soccer. But colleges across the nation knew all about their soccer-playing abilities because they played for the Tri-Valley Roadrunners, a high-profile club team in Danville.

Playing time at Marist wasn’t an issue, as Katie said her and Laura started every game at midfield for two years while rarely being subbed for. They made second-team Metro Atlantic Conference, and were the team’s leading scorers. Everything was going well until Marist soccer coach Elizabeth Roper reneged on her agreement to let the twins play basketball in their junior and senior years, Katie Zasly said. That was one of the big sticking points in coming to Marist, because the Zaslys also received soccer scholarship offers from Texas, Baylor and Brown.

However, earlier in the summer Roper told the Zaslys they would not be allowed to play basketball because of their importance to the soccer team. The twins — who think in lockstep and are probably the most inseparable and similar twins you’ll ever meet — didn’t take well to Roper’s demands. The Zaslys faced a tough choice because they wanted to play basketball only to see their soccer coach go back on her word.

“We had a full-ride scholarship, she had all our money and she practically owned us,” Katie Zasly said. “We were upset and didn’t know what we could do.”

So the Zaslys thought about transferring all summer, then did just that, making their decision final in early August. Their connection with Skyline and coach Trisha Hosley came when the twins showed up at one of Skyline’s open gym sessions two years ago.

“Trisha is a big reason why we came to Skyline,” Katie said. “She’s a great teacher of the game and we’re constantly learning.”

The Zaslys will play one year at Skyline and transfer to another four-year school, and hopefully find another situation where they can play both basketball and soccer at the Division I level. While some might question their decision — frankly, it takes a lot of guts to give up full-ride scholarships and playing time at a Division I program — the Zaslys have never sounded happier. I’m sure basketball fans around these parts are ecstatic — myself included — for the simple fact that we can see two of the best female basketball players the county has produced in the last decade once again.

During a spectacular four-year varsity career, the Zaslys, who combined to score 35 points per game, led Aragon to a 77-16 record, to four league championships, to two Central Coast Section championship games and two CIF NorCal tournament appearances. They’re exciting to watch because they play the game with so much verve and passion. They’re pretty talented, too. Simply put, the Zaslys decided to come back for one reason.

“We missed basketball so much,” Katie said. “We didn’t realize how much we would miss it until we weren’t allowed to play. We just wanted another opportunity to play again. A lot of people couldn’t believe we would give up our scholarships, like we were joking with them. We were shocked ourselves. But we knew deep down we couldn’t live without basketball. It’s a part of us. We’re beyond excited.”

A Baer of a runner

Wendy Baer describes it as surreal because she doesn’t remember her near-death experience.

A week before turning 3, the Foster City native and current Seattle resident nearly drowned in her parents’ Foster City home pool. For a couple of seconds her heart stopped beating, but Baer’s mom, Francine, performed CPR and revived her daughter before paramedics arrived on the scene. Fortunately, Baer suffered no ill-effects from the incident and lives happily in the Emerald City.

“I only know stories about what happened,” she said. “The biggest fear at the time was brain damage (due to a lack of oxygen). It periodically does pop in my head, that I was essentially dead for a moment in time. But I love the water and I love swimming, so it obviously had no effect in that sense.”

Full disclosure: Baer is one of four daughters of Fred Baer, whose myriad job titles include being the College of San Mateo sports information director and the secretary/founder of the Track and Field Writers of America and just overall good guy. Wendy Baer, 30, only knows how to live life to the fullest. And last Sunday, she was doing just that.

The 1996 Hillsdale High graduate was the top finisher — male or female — from San Mateo County in the New York City Marathon, finishing in 4 hours, 8 minutes. It was Baer’s first time running a full marathon, having participated in the half-marathon portion of the Nike Women’s Marathon in San Francisco the last two years.

When her dad — who was up by 5:30 a.m. Sunday morning to watch the NYC Marathon — told Wendy that she was the top finisher from her native county, she didn’t know how to react. After all, Baer is still a novice at this long distance-running stuff. But surprisingly, running 26.2 miles wasn’t as hard as she thought it was going to be.

“Don’t get me wrong — it was tough,” she said. “But training for the marathon was the hardest part. I went out and ran as fast as I could run. When I crossed the finish line I felt a great sense of accomplishment.”

Just like the other 37,000 or so runners who managed to finish the race. There are times during a marathon when every runner hits the wall, and Baer had thoughts of quitting at mile 18. But the fact that she paid her own plane ticket to come across the country motivated her to continue.

“At mile 18 I didn’t want to do it anymore,” she said. “But I knew I had to keep going.”

Baer felt the adrenaline rush of seeing hundreds of thousands of people lining the race course, the crowds five rows deep at times. After the halfway point whenever Baer felt tired she would drink either water or Gatorade and ingest a Power Bar gel shot for an added boost. Even though Baer ran four years of track in high school, she’s more passionate about running now than she’s ever been.

Baer’s journey to the Big Apple was exactly that. She first got back into running three years ago, as she joined co-workers in Seattle’s Beat the Bridge, a 5-mile race. Then she got into half-marathons, and that led to New York. An athletic shoe buyer for a major department store — the job is more exciting than it sounds — Baer plans on running more half and full marathons, and eventually training for a triathlon.

Baer runs because it makes her feel good. She runs because it gives her a sense of purpose. Like millions of others in this country, she runs to run.

And that’s a beautiful thing.

Emanuel Lee can be reached at emanuel@smdailyjournal.com and (650) 344 5200, ext. 109.