What makes champion North Catholic twins Anna and Audra Lazzara assassins on and off the track?
JACKSON TWP — North Catholic students have a game of senior assassins, where students use squirt guns out of school to shoot water at each other and “assassinate” a target.
Get your target, and you have to go after their target next. All while trying not to get got by someone else.
Assassins caused a fight in the Lazzara house last month.
“The person that had me as a target is really good friends with Anna, and he came over and got me out,” Audra Lazzara said. “So I got very competitive about it, wouldn’t talk to her for the rest of the night.”
“There was a big fight in the house,” Anna Lazzara said.
The Trojanettes’ twin sisters were able to laugh about it during a break in the Butler County Classic at Seneca Valley High School on March 28. They are very competitive, but also close.
“They’re both very talented, ambitious, driven, competitive young ladies,” North girls coach Terry Fisher said. “They thrive in competition, they have a winner’s mentality.”
And do a lot of it.
Audra played volleyball up through the fall, but is now focusing solely on track. Anna played basketball until recently, as well.
Anna runs in the 100- and 200-meter dashes, throws the shot put and javelin, long jumps and sometimes does the hurdles. She was on the 4x100 relay team that won WPIAL and PIAA gold last year.
Audra runs the 100 and 300 hurdles, long jumps, is still on that 4x100 and sometimes sprints the 100 dash.
Anna has won eight WPIAL and PIAA medals in two years, including 4x100 district gold twice and long jump bronze at districts and states.
Audra has won five medals, including those 4x100 golds last year (she was not on the relay as a freshman) and 100 hurdles gold at districts and silver at states.
“It’s kind of like for twins we each find something and then it’s ours,” Anna said.
They are, perhaps unsurprisingly, very similar and yet different. When faced with rapid-fire questions, they each broke into laughs quickly and mostly agreed with each other.
- The more competitive twin: Anna
- The better athlete: Anna (although there was some debate)
- The twin with better style: Audra “definitely”
- The twin with better taste in music: Audra
Anna turns inward during the heat of competition to get in the zone. Audra chats it up with whoever she can find to distract herself. She brings a giant speaker to meets and practices to liven things up and get teammates dancing and singing together.
While they miss team sports and the environment, they are all in on their track and field careers. And junior year is a big one for recruiting purposes.
They are in the process of talking to college coaches, largely in Division I, although Anna was working her way back earlier this season from a hamstring injury she suffered in the winter that’s slowed some of that interest. Another big outdoor season for both could do wonders.
“I definitely think after last year it really opened my eyes how successful we could be, especially collegiately,” Audra said. “I think in this day and age, you kind of have to focus on one sports. And you can be good at two sports, my parents always say, but not great at one if you do those two.”
Last month’s Butler County Classic was a good start, with the twins winning a combined four golds — Anna in the shot put, Audra in the long jump, 100 hurdles and 4x100.
Anna was recently cleared to resume further competition from a preseason hamstring injury — although she still had KT tape on — during Saturday’s Butler Invitational at Butler High School. She broke her PR in the 100 with a 12.15 for gold, then paired with her sister to win the 4x100 in 48.18. Audra placed second in the 110 hurdles (15.36), and both medaled in the long jump.
Audra is clear on setting personal goals around performance, not placement. She wants to drop a second off her 100 hurdles PR (14.93, per PA Milesplit), do similar in the 300 (PR of 47.91) and add distance on her jumps.
Anna wants to break under 12 seconds in the 100 dash and under 25 in the 200 (PR of 25.27), maybe get to 19 feet in the long jump (PR of 18-4).
“That would be awesome,” she said.
Because of their particular disciplines, Anna is training with coaches, including at Duquesne, to become a college heptathlete. She fell into shot put while battling shin splints her freshman year and discovered she is naturally good at it.
“My mom’s like, ‘You’re actually really good at a lot of stuff,’” Anna said.
Audra wants to focus on the hurdles and long jump, but that can be a “foundation” for a future heptathlete, too.
“It’s a combination of God-given gifts coupled with a focus and work ethic, a drive,” Fisher said of what sets the twins apart from others.
Which brings things back to that recent game of assassins that required parental intervention — that competitiveness they both share. They’ll cheer each other on, sneak a look at each other’s long jump distances to know what to top and get into fights over squirt guns.
“We both have that switch we can turn on,” Audra said.
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