SPOKANE, Wash. — Whenever the Gonzaga women begin their season, they’ll rely on heavily on the team’s three returning starters: Jenn Wirth, Lee Wirth, and Jill Townsend.
As I’m sure you’ve put together, Jenn and Lee are twins, but Jill is definitely the third pea in that pod.
"When they’re on the court with me, it’s just so much fun," said Lee Wirth of playing with Jenn and Jill. "It doesn’t matter who the person is doing the scoring or getting the steals or what not, but just that it’s my best friend doing it."
When you watch the Gonzaga women the bond between the Wirth twins and Jill Townsend is evident.
The funny thing is, it wasn’t evident to Jill, at least at the beginning.
"I didn’t like them," Jill said with a laugh. "I just wasn’t really close with them for the first three or four months. I just thought we had some big differences."
That’s obviously not the case now though heading into their senior seasons.
"It just kind of feels like a couple of sisters now," said Jill.
Jill may not have known that her friendship with the twins would flourish, but Jenn Wirth knew before she even met the Okanagan native.
"I always kind of felt like I had an inkling. It’s always a joke that, like, once I found out Jill was going to be our teammate, I stalked her on Instagram. I saw her around the cows and horses and just all the cattle in general, and I was like, ‘I think we’re going to be friends. I just have a good feeling.’ That’s kind of, like, my claim to fame," said Jenn Wirth.
The trio also live together off campus. This could potentially be their last season playing together. They aren’t ready to talk about this final season-- and potentially their final year in college yet-- if that’s the case.
"Someone randomly will always bring up like, ‘Guys, like, we get to live together. It’s not going to be like this for long.’ We shut it down really quickly because we don’t really want to have to think about that. We just have so much fun and there’s always something going on in the house that keeps it interesting," said Jenn Wirth.
Their bond will last long past their playing days though.
"I was so close to going to a different school. I was this close to being somewhere not at Gonzaga. Obviously, these guys were getting recruited by different places too. It just kind of all came together. I’m super thankful that by the grace of god we all ended up at Gonzaga and formed a friendship that will last forever," said Townsend.