Same Gym Class, Different Regions: The Faulkner Sisters Head to the Festival
How two sisters from the same house ended up on opposite sides of the court — and what they’re hoping to find when they get there.
Hanna and Marissa Faulkner didn’t set out to become Team Handball players. The sport found them the way it finds a lot of American athletes — sideways, through a substitute teacher scouting gym class for the USATH Youth and Junior Women’s national teams. Hanna was in elementary school. Marissa was in middle school. Neither one had a plan. Both of them stayed.
That accident of timing turned into a shared sport, but not always a shared path. Marissa was invited to a tournament in Sweden after 7th or 8th grade that never quite came together for lack of players. She and Hanna both made the roster for the IHF NACHC Women’s Youth Qualifier Cup in Montreal — but school and a competing commitment to high-level soccer kept Marissa off that trip. Her first real game didn’t come until senior year of high school, three weeks before COVID shut everything down. She came off the bench not knowing the rules, never having practiced. It would be 2022 — when both sisters made the Junior Women’s National Team and went to Junior World Cup Qualifiers together — before Marissa was really playing.
Hanna’s start was its own kind of improvised. She joined a year after the group had already traveled to Sweden’s Partille Cup, brought in by teammates from her soccer and basketball squads. In 2019, that same group scraped together enough players to make the trip to Montreal. It was there — 7th grade, playing her first real game — that she also discovered what everyone eventually discovers about Team Handball: the glue.
Together, Then Apart
For most of their athletic lives, the age gap kept Hanna and Marissa off the same teams in every other sport. Handball was the exception — whenever their tournament schedules lined up, they played together. Hanna kept going even after Marissa aged out of the Junior Women’s National Team, picking up trips on her own while playing collegiately at Ohio State. Marissa stepped away during part of college and only recently returned to competition with Chicago Inter this past club season.
So when the rosters for the 2026 Handball Futures Festival came out, the sisters found themselves in a familiar-but-new position: selected together, assigned apart. Hanna will compete for North. Marissa will compete for South.
“We were a little surprised that we weren’t both on the North team, considering we’re from the same place,” Marissa said. “But we weren’t really that surprised that they put siblings on different teams.”
Marissa found out first.
Pushing Each Other
Outside of a handful of shared trainings, the sisters have never truly gone head-to-head. But even in practice, something changes when they’re on the same court. “We’ve always been able to push each other in a way that non-family members can’t do,” Marissa said, “and we’re excited to see how that translates to games when we possibly play against each other.”
Their mom is thrilled that both of them were selected to be part of this experience.
A Week for Just Handball
Both sisters point to the same thing when asked what they’re most looking forward to: time. A full week with nothing else on the calendar but the sport they’ve built their lives around — something neither has had since their last World Championship appearances. For Marissa, that’s 2022. For Hanna, 2024.
There’s also the chance to learn from the Olympians and National Team players joining the Festival as guests. “I’m most excited to meet and learn from the former Olympians who have played at the level I aspire to reach,” Marissa said. Hanna feels the same pull: “I want to learn as much as I can from the Olympians, as I aspire to represent the U.S. on the biggest world stage like they did.”
Win or lose, both sisters are already framing the week the same way — less about the scoreboard, more about what they’ll carry forward. “I hope to look back on this experience knowing that I gave it my all both on and off the court,” Marissa said. Hanna’s hoping for something similar: fond memories of the connections made, and a step closer to the international stage she’s chasing. “I am honored to be selected to participate in an event that will help the growth of handball throughout the US.”
Hanna and Marissa Faulkner will take the court for North and South when the Handball Futures Festival opens July 22 in Colorado Springs.