Quadruple state titles for Merion Mercy twins?

Shelbey Manthorpe received a dig and set it. Stacey Manthorpe curled around the set in a fluid dance, rose up, and spiked the ball with force. It nailed a teammate, who to her credit stood her ground, before ricocheting wildly across the gym.

"Her life just flashed before her eyes," coach Rich Johnson said after checking to see if his player was OK, before laughing off the play - resigned to the sequence.

For the past four years, the volleyball gym at Merion Mercy Academy has housed a dynasty; a run of state dominance, a grand total of two lost matches, and a 35-0 record this year.

At the epicenter of the slew of wins have been the Manthorpes, seniors and identical twins who this weekend will attempt to win their fourth consecutive PIAA Class AA state championship.

Little distinguishes Stacey and Shelbey. Stacey sports a tight braid; Shelbey, a frazzled ponytail. Both chomp gum amid the most relaxed on-court demeanor. Shelbey is lefthanded. Stacey is a righty.

They're 6-foot-1, 17-year-old blondes heading to Seton Hall to play in college. On court, they are in concert.

"We know our tendencies and what each other is going to do," said Stacey Manthorpe, a middle hitter. "I can tell just by the way her hand moves where's she's going to set it."

"It's like we've seen the plays before," Shelbey added.

Merion Mercy has four state titles in volleyball overall, the first in 2001. Johnson, who has headed the program for 12 years, has sent four other players to Division I programs.

"I had other good volleyball players before they got here, but they took us to another level. . . . They're both really competitive," Johnson said.

"But Shelbey's competitiveness is much more than Stacey's. Stacey, she goes hard all the time, but Shelbey has another gear, another level."

It's atypical for a player of Shelbey's size to be a setter. But her adeptness for the game allows her to facilitate on the court. She handles every second ball and dictates the offensive flow. She has 972 assists this season, complimented by her sister's 409 kills.

"Without her, we would never be undefeated," Johnson said of Shelbey. "She does everything for us. Not that Stacey's a bad player. Stacey's the best middle [hitter] I've ever had here. . . .

"Those two, by far, are the best two players at their position. Shelbey's the best player I've ever coached here, and Stacey, I'd say, is top five."

Much of Shelbey Manthorpe's importance to the team comes from her skill set as a taller setter, her ability to get balls that smaller players are unable to retrieve in tight spaces.

Both maintain that, despite others' attempts to create competition between them over the years, they aren't competitive with each other. What's more, they don't think either is much better at anything they do. Well, maybe one thing.

"She's better at video games," Stacey said. "Not going to lie."

Naturally, the twins are best friends. They've started for four years for the Golden Bears and have been cocaptains for two. They are so in tune with Johnson that they practically help coach the team. It allows Johnson, much of the time, to sit relaxed courtside, smile on his face, enjoying the show.

"I'll tell Shelbey to go run a play, and she goes," said Johnson, who also coaches the Manthorpe twins and one other girl from Merion's 12-player roster for Synergy Volleyball Club. " 'I already did it.' They know exactly what I want."

This weekend, with a fourth state crown at stake, the twins are keeping things in perspective. They want to win, of course, but realize the nature of what they've already accomplished.

Said Shelbey: "Just winning one in your high school career is amazing. It's almost like a miracle, like a onetime thing. Having three, it's . . . crazy."

Johnson is aware, too. "I tell all the girls, embrace what you have this year," the coach said with a slight tremble in his voice, acknowledging that the program will go through a "big transformation" when the twins depart, "because it might never happen again. . . . I'm definitely going to miss them."

When the Manthorpe girls were younger, after picking up the sport as fourth graders at St. Dorothy School in Drexel Hill, they used to go to the backyard of their family's Havertown home and practice, just the two of them.

That's where they learned to love the game. And for all the accolades, the potential fourth state championship and the college scholarships, it seems to all come back to one thing.

"I get to play with my sister," Stacey said.