They say it only happened one time, but Taryn and Taylor Barbot remember the details exactly.

The 17-year-old twin basketball stars were playing an AAU game a few years back, and an opponent was getting a little rough on Taryn.

Fouls were called, but the physical play kept up. Finally, Taylor, the younger sister by one minute, went up to the opponent with some harsh words.

“I told her to knock it off and got up in her face a little bit,” Taylor said.

“And that was the end of her fouling me hard,” Taryn said with a smile.

The Barbot twins are as easygoing and friendly as you could imagine off the court, but the Manhasset St. Mary’s seniors are certainly not to be messed with on it.

The Floral Park kids who’ve been wowing spectators since they were in first grade, earning the nickname “The Tornado Twins” are back for one final season with the Gaels.

And they’ll have to work very hard to create an encore to their magical junior season in 2021-22. With 5-foot-9 Taryn playing every position and scoring at will, and 5-foot-8 point guard Taylor dishing out assists and defending hard, St. Mary’s captured its first Catholic High School Athletic Association state championship since 1994.

In the state championship game, Taryn was unstoppable, scoring 19 points, grabbing 18 rebounds and six assists.

It was a triumph three years in the making, and the girls said they’re not finished, not at all.

“It was really special because we’ve been working hard to bring a title back here; they’ve had so many great teams in the past,” Taylor said before a recent preseason practice. “And now that we’ve won one, we know we have a target on our backs, and you don’t want to let up. You want to do it again.”

St. Mary’s coach Kevin White, who has been scouting and watching the Barbots since they were playing on the Brooklyn Stars AAU team in middle school, said he’s the “luckiest coach” to have gotten to direct them.

“You always want good athletes and more importantly good people from good families, and they have just been so great for our program,” White said. “Taylor, she’s a pass-first point guard who always makes good decisions and gets people to their spots.

“And Taryn, she’s a Swiss Army knife, she does a little bit of everything for us, scoring, rebounding, defending, she can guard all five positions.

“I probably rely on Taryn too much, but she’s just really good at everything.”

The Barbots’ basketball journey began in Floral Park, where they’re from, when mom Theran and Dad Thierry started trying the girls out in different sports.

Hoops quickly became their favorite, and the battles on the driveway and in the neighborhood playgrounds were fierce.

“Our parents would have to separate us sometimes,” Taryn recalled.

“It could get pretty violent,” Taylor chimed in. “But once we got inside the house, we were friends again.”

“But still,” Taryn said, “Coach Kevin won’t let us guard each other in practice now. He doesn’t want to know what might happen.”

The Barbots arrived at St. Mary’s as freshmen and saw their season interrupted by Covid, which turned out to be partially a blessing, Taylor said.

“We got to practice more and work on our games,” she said.

White said both arrived at St. Mary’s with very strong bases of skills, and that each worked their way into the starting lineup toward the end of the abbreviated freshman season.

“I did tell them then and still tell them now, they look for each other on the court a little too much,” he said. “But they’re really good at getting everyone involved, and making sure the team is ready to play at all times.”

Last season Taylor and Taryn took their games to a new level, with Taylor averaging eight points, eight assists and four boards per contest, while Taryn poured in 24 points, 10 rebounds and five assists per game.

All that skill caught the eye of many Division I college coaches, with Richmond, Albany and Fairleigh Dickinson in hot pursuit.

But it was the College of Charleston, a solid mid-major D-1 program, that pursued the Barbots the hardest and won their names on a scholarship.

“They were always checking in on us and watching us and really showed us a lot of love,” Taylor said. “And the campus is beautiful. I’m excited to go there.”

Taryn said she’s undecided on a college major, but Taylor is confident of her career path: She wants to be an OBGYN and help African-American women as much as possible.

“There’s a lot of history of black women being treated unfairly in the medical community, and a lot of doctors not believing their pain is real, and their symptoms are real,” Taylor said. “Black women die at a higher rate in childbirth than (non-black women). So I really want to see if I can help with that.”

A noble goal for the future, no doubt. For now, the Barbots will try to bring one more banner to their little school on Northern Boulevard.

“It would be really nice to get another chip,” Taryn said. “Everyone at this school has been so supportive and so nice, that it would be so great to go out with one more.”