Erika and Brooke Yost are a couple of sisters truly cut from the same cloth.

They have the same smile, they complete each other’s sentences when fielding questions from a reporter, and they even run at the same speed.

In one of the Falcons’ most recent events hosted out of Fountain Hills High School, elder sister Brooke Yost finished second for the home team, just four seconds in front of sister, Erika.

Brooke is a junior and Erika is a freshman.

With a couple of years dividing them, the girls have never been able to compete on the same athletic teams. That’s actually part of the reason the Yost sisters decided to run cross country this year. They wanted to be on the same team.

Erika plays club soccer for Del Sol, which takes up much of her free time during the regular school seasons. Brooke continues playing for the school, however, competing in both basketball and track.

“My soccer coach’s daughter suggested that I should run more,” Erika said.

“So that’s what got me thinking about cross country.”

Brooke, on the other hand, said that she’s been doing track since she was a freshman and decided she might as well keep the ball rolling with cross country in the fall.

“Over the summer we both said that we’d probably do cross country because it’s the only sport we can do together,” Erika said.

“I didn’t expect that we’d be that good at it, but we really encourage each other. Well, I guess we’ve always competed against each other, but we also encourage each other at the same time.”

Brooke agreed.

“There’s definitely an element of friendly competition there,” she said.

“But it doesn’t matter to us who comes in first. We just want to do our best for our team and we want to try to win state for coach [Chris] Davis.”

When asked if they expected to be hitting the finish line so close to one another during races, the Yost sisters answered with, “Yeah, kind of,” at the same time.

“When we were little we would race in the back yard and we were always close to each other,” Brooke said.

“And both of our parents are pretty fast, so we figured we’d be running close together.”

When it comes to race day, Erika said she basically sticks with Brooke’s pace.

“At the end we just run and, whoever comes in first, that’s just what happens,” Erika added.

“But at the same time, being so close to the same time, that makes for a good competition.”

Both girls had trouble putting into words the “bad” part about racing against a sibling. In short, they want to do their best and, yes, they would like to win. But at the same time, they don’t like the idea of beating each other.

“The best part of cross country, though, has definitely been getting the chance to run with Erika,” Brooke said.

“We love doing stuff together, and being able to do this is pretty fun. Running with her only pushes me to go faster. We don’t want to beat each other, but we always do our best.”

The Yost girls said that, finally being on the same team, they find themselves talking about cross country quite a bit at home.

“We’ll talk with our parents about it, too, and then try to do better at the next race,” Brooke said.

“We tell each other stuff like, ‘We could probably get this time at the next race,’ and just encourage each other, really,” Erika added.

With everything but state wrapped up for the cross country team, the Yost girls said they are excited to see how the final meet turns out.

“We’re really hoping to win state for CC [Davis],” Brooke said.

“He’s a great coach and we’re all really going to miss him.”