Sea and Moore Eye Repeat Titles as Staten Island’s High School Hoops Reset Begins

As Staten Island’s Catholic and private high school girls’ basketball teams gear up for a new season, the persistent quest for athletic excellence reflects shifting dynamics in local identity, youth development, and New York City’s sporting ambitions.

For those seeking proof that sporting triumphs are fleeting, one need look no further than the banners in the gyms of Staten Island’s Catholic schools. Just a year after St. Joseph by-the-Sea’s girls clinched a coveted CHSAA Archdiocesan title and Moore Catholic captured the A state championship, both find themselves without their standout stars. Gone are Angelina Hodgens and Brianna Caliri, record-setters whose scoring prowess powered their teams to glory. In their stead, a blend of gritty seniors and wide-eyed underclassmen now shoulder the hopes of passionate alumni, optimistic coaches, and an ever-demanding borough.

As the 2025-26 high school basketball season opens, Staten Island’s original five—Sea, Moore, Notre Dame Academy, St. Joseph Hill, and Staten Island Academy—are preparing for campaigns defined as much by transition as by continuity. Sea, the borough’s lone AAA division representative after re-alignment, faces perhaps the steepest climb: a newly-forged roster must compete not just against local rivals, but citywide juggernauts like Christ the King and Scanlan. With six seniors leading and five underclassmen making their varsity debuts, Coach Josh Suslak praises their “toughness and togetherness.” Such unity will be tested against some of New York’s most athletic opponents.

Moore Catholic, meanwhile, enters with expectations as robust as its 27–2 record last year suggests. Yet the Mavericks’ path is complicated by the graduation of Caliri. The team’s fate may hinge on the chemistry between sisters Emma and Olivia Bruno-Dunne and a deep rotation of returning seniors—talented, but tested now as leaders rather than followers. Their undefeated 17–0 streak in league play last season is a double-edged sword, inviting both admiration and scrutiny as new challengers, particularly Notre Dame Academy and St. Joseph Hill, look to disrupt their reign in AA.

In the parallel track of the independent ACIS league, Staten Island Academy has lured back local legend Sandy Litkenhaus to helm the program. More than a tactical move, it is a bid to infuse the team with the poise and pedigree of its past: Litkenhaus was the Jacques Award winner in 1987 before a standout college career. Her arrival is seen as a harbinger of renewal, potentially raising the level of competition for all private schools in the borough and projecting fresh ambition into the city’s wider basketball landscape.

The first-order implications of these changes are immediately felt in the gyms and classrooms of Staten Island. At a practical level, the loss of marquee scorers means less certainty—fewer blowout wins, more fifth-quarter sweat. Coaches report a renewed emphasis on defense, discipline, and team-oriented play. For student-athletes, especially those stepping onto the court as first-year varsity players, it is a chance to earn their stripes, etching themselves into the borough’s sporting folklore.

Beneath the X’s and O’s, however, run deeper currents. Staten Island’s Catholic and private schools see success in girls’ basketball as a portal to college scholarships, enhanced school spirit, and—especially in communities where sport bridges social divides—a crucial marker of collective pride. With urban pressures mounting and the costs of private education outpacing inflation, a title run can energise enrolment and philanthropic giving. There is an economic logic to athletic ambition—school administrators eye not just trophies, but the halo effect on reputation and resources.

Second-order consequences ripple well beyond school boundaries. For Staten Island, long a peripheral player in New York’s athletic hierarchy, competitive girls’ basketball has become a way to assert identity in a city dominated by the sporting might of Manhattan and Queens. When local standouts go on to play college ball—often the first in their families to do so—it bodes well for aspirations off the court. The borough’s rise on this front feels both precarious and overdue, given the talent regularly exported to citywide and even national tournaments. In a city where opportunity and competition intersect, sport has become both proving ground and launchpad.

A wider field of play: How Staten Island’s schools stack up

Across the five boroughs, girls’ high school basketball remains fiercely contested. In the public-school sector, PSAL powerhouses such as South Shore and Francis Lewis routinely feed NCAA programs. By contrast, Staten Island’s Catholic and independent schools punch above their weight; per the latest CHSAA figures, their teams produce a disproportionate share of recruits per capita. Yet the island faces resource constraints—smaller gyms, thinner talent pools, often less exposure—versus the deep-pocketed programs up the subway line.

Nationally, elite high school girls’ basketball reflects a growing professionalisation: slicker recruitment, year-round training, burgeoning club circuits. New Yorkers, in this light, retain a stubborn fondness for neighbourhood pride and inter-school rivalries, but the effects of these shifting sands are keenly felt. American youth sport’s lurch toward specialisation and commercialisation has reached the outer boroughs, too. Staten Island’s schools must adapt or risk falling behind—not just in scores, but in their ability to cultivate well-rounded, resilient young people.

Our view is that the fade of one star is the making of a team—or, at least, the right sort of team. Programs overly dependent on singular talent are hardly well-positioned for sustained success or adversity. That both Sea and Moore are openly leaning on unity and defensive tenacity says much about the culture of coaching and athlete development now ascendant on the island. We are cautiously optimistic: hard-nosed, collaborative play has a way of bucking the odds in March, even as the city’s powerhouses loom large over the borough’s gymnasiums.

Ultimately, New York thrives on churn: as standout seniors depart and underclassmen inherit their legacy, the cycle of talent and ambition renews itself. On the eve of the new season, Staten Island’s high school girls find themselves the authors of a fresh chapter—one less certain, perhaps, but richer for its uncertainty. If we were betting on which borough’s teams will surprise this winter, we would not dismiss the island—nor the ability of its schools to turn transition into an enduring strength. ■