Seeing Double: Twin transfers Chase and Logan Gilley adjust to life with men’s soccer team

Chase and Logan Gilley have departed their home in North Carolina to Moon Township to join the Robert Morris men’s soccer team. The identical twins are first-semester sophomores, who have played soccer together since they were kids.

They have always been on the same team, which has heavily grown their relationship with one another, as teammates and as brothers.

“We’re probably inseparable,” Logan said. “We go everywhere together, we do everything together…and then whenever we play together, it’s just automatic.”

Chase added a similar sentiment to playing with his brother.

“We don’t even really have to talk to each other. We just look at each other and just know what we’re going to say. It’s quite nice.”

Since they spend just about every moment with one another, they possibly need some time to themselves, but not when playing together.

Their neighbor was a soccer player and first inspired them to play. He often came over and played with them and it just snowballed.

“Chase and I just kind of followed in his footsteps, really,” Logan said.

The twins aren’t the only two kids in their family. They have an older sister who also got into the sport, and they were anxious to get playing when they saw her on the field.

“We’d go to her games…and we were always so mad we couldn’t play because we weren’t old enough yet, so we’d play against each other all day,” Chase said. “So that’s basically how we started playing soccer for most of our lives.”

Even with their family a seven-hour drive away, they remain close with them and plan on having them make the trip to see them play.

“They’ll try to get to as many games as they can. Hopefully, they can come to a lot of them,” Chase said.

Before college, they crushed records at East Lincoln High School. Much like the Gandy twins were on RMU women’s lacrosse, the two were a one-two punch on the roster.

Chase had 134 goals in their four years and Logan had 106, with the next highest scorer at 34 career goals. Their hometown of Denver, North Carolina, which is an everybody-knows-everybody environment with a population of just over 3,200, follows along with the career of the twins.

Where they were from, soccer was not a common thing that people played at the time, so they stood out amongst the community and hoped to encourage others to play the sport.

“It was kind of nice that a bunch of kids nowadays can grow up thinking of us wanting to be like us back home. Soccer is growing now back [in Denver],” Chase said.

In their first recruiting process, they decided to go to Appalachian State, but the program got canceled, so they followed RMU head coach Jason O’Keefe, who was coaching there, to Robert Morris after a year at UNC Greensboro.

This heavily grew their relationship with the coach, who introduced them to the school.

“We didn’t really know much about Robert Morris…we knew Coach O’Keefe was here, so we were like okay, we can check it out and we ended up liking it. It’s a good fit,” Chase said.

Chase also reflected on his relationship with Jason O’Keefe.

“We all went through a really rough time with COVID and stuff, so it was kind of nice to have someone who was in the same boat as us that we could talk to.”

When asked about the Gilleys, Coach O’Keefe echoed what Chase said.

“Anytime you go through a hardship together, the relationship can go one of two ways,” O’Keefe said. “Certainly, our bond stayed intact and helped them get to UNC Greensboro…they were looking for something new.”

At the time, the brothers were looking at James Madison and Robert Morris. The mountainous range and the region drew them to campus.

“It’s been great. [The brothers have] stepped in and really integrated well,” O’Keefe said.

The two remain dominant on the attacking side of the pitch, with Chase most often a forward and Logan taking on various positions.

When asked who they think the better player is out of the two of them, Logan was quick to point to himself in response, saying to his brother, “He plays striker, he’s supposed to score a goal, if he doesn’t score a goal he’s out of a job.”

Chase fought back against his brother, pointing at their compared performances during their spring games.

Either way, both Chase and Logan Gilley have proven beneficial additions to the team and will look to be a huge part of the roster this upcoming season.