University of Arizona / Submitted photoRachel Estopare & Hayley Estopare

To teammates, they are lumped together, known simply as “the Estopares” or “you guys.” They are rarely, it seems, spoken to individually. When teammates wish to address one of them, it feels as though the two are spoken to as a collective instead.

They are the Estopare sisters — Hayley and Rachel. And they are seemingly inseparable. They live together in an apartment off the University of Arizona campus in Tucson. They drive to school together, cook together, even wear each other’s clothes. Only the Wildcat women’s soccer locker room splits the two, as they do not share a locker — in fact, their lockers are not even side by side, though “that was not our decision,” Rachel says.

“Everything we do is together,” says Rachel, a freshman goalkeeper. “But Hayley and I have been best friends since we were born. That’s just always how it’s been. We’re always together. We’re best friends, and we support each other in basically everything.”

They are sisters, best friends — and soccer teammates at Arizona.

“We both know that we’re really blessed to be in this situation,” says Hayley, a 2012 graduate of Bend’s Summit High and now a junior defensive midfielder who started in 16 of 20 games in 2013. “Not a lot of people even go to college with their sister or relative or anything. We know what kind of blessing this is.”

Rachel, a 2014 Summit grad, agrees: “It’s not every day you get to go play at a top-level program with your sibling alongside you. We definitely realize what kind of situation we’re in. We take advantage of that every day.”

The Estopare sisters played two years of varsity soccer together at Summit beginning in 2010, when Rachel broke into the lineup as a freshman goalkeeper during Hayley’s run toward the Class 5A player of the year and the Storm’s journey to their first girls soccer state title.

Hayley closed her high school career as a first-team all-Intermountain Conference selection in 2011 and headed to the Southwest for the University of Arizona. Meanwhile, back in Bend, the younger Estopare became an all-state keeper and helped Summit to back-to-back state championships in 2012 and ’13.

Rachel, like her sister, committed to play at a Pac-12 school — only it was Southern Cal.

“It would have been such a rivalry,” Rachel speculates. “I don’t know who (our parents) would have rooted for.”

But mom and dad would not have to face that decision. In what she describes as a “personal change,” Rachel reversed course and followed her older sister to Tucson. Both sisters had a desire to continue playing together at the next level. It was a “personal decision,” Rachel says, but Hayley was a significant factor in her decision.

“I always wanted her here,” Hayley says. “But I wanted her to make the decision, to be on her own and have her own college experience. But being here with her is great and fun for us.

“The level of competition is a lot higher, so in that aspect it’s different,” the elder Estopare says of once again playing alongside her sister. “But it (still) feels kind of the same to me.”

Hayley is typically a starter for second-year Arizona coach Tony Amato, while Rachel, one of five keepers on the Wildcats’ roster, is No. 2 on the depth chart behind senior Gabby Kaufman, who led the Pac-12 in saves last season.

The elder Estopare, who has scored once through five games this season, set a standard of work ethic and fitness last year, Amato says. She is an ultracompetitor. Amato was told that Rachel was the same way, that the two sisters bring out the most cutthroat sides of each other. Says Amato: “We have definitely seen that.”

“It’s been interesting to see how competitive they both are separately, but also going against each other,” Amato observes. Hayley is quieter but leads by example, the Arizona coach says, while Rachel tends to be a little more outspoken. But, Amato continues, “from a work ethic and grinding standpoint, I thought, ‘Oh yeah, there’s no doubt they’re sisters.’”

Every training session, every practice, the Estopare sisters are competing against each other, trying to best the other. But that sisterly comfort never subsides.

“It’s kind of this natural, I mean, it’s the older sister thing, I guess,” Hayley explains. “Even though she wants to be independent and everything, I’m always going to try to look out for her and help her in any way that I can.”

“We’ve always had that connection,” Rachel adds. “And it hasn’t changed.”

There is little indication that it ever will.

—Reporter: 541-383-0307, glucas@bendbulletin.com.

Central Oregon sister acts

The Estopares are not the only sisters from Central Oregon competing at the next level. They aren’t even the only sisters to be playing for the same team. Twins Amanda and Alyssa Pease, both 2013 Bend High grads, are sophomores at the University of Idaho, where Amanda is a defenseman and Alyssa is an attacker. Each has played in all five Vandals games in 2014 with Alyssa scoring for Idaho’s lone goal this season. Other former Central Oregon prep standouts now playing NCAA Division I women’s soccer:

Bend High: Maryn Beutler, jr., Oregon

Mountain View: Torie Morris, jr., Portland; Allie Cummins, so., Boise State

Summit: Kristen Parr, jr., Oregon

Sisters: Sara Small, jr., Wake Forest; Natalie Ambrose, fr., Columbia