![\"CSI](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ALABVG7SAJGDDHOOW2K5RL7HNA.JPG\")
Krya Rose brings plenty of experience to the CSI roster. (Samantha Flecker-Silverman, Courtesy of CSI athletics)Samantha Flecker-Silverman<\/p>\nSTATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — The College of Staten Island women\u2019s basketball program in 2024-25 enjoyed its best season since moving up to NCAA Division II.<\/p>\n
The Dolphins went 21-9 last season and lost in the East Coast Conference championship game to Daemen. While clearing that last hurdle this season would bring delight to Dolphin Land, encores are tough in college sports because new people are now wearing those uniforms.<\/p>\n
So, even if these Dolphins \u2013 with nine new players (two transfers and seven freshmen) on the 12-player roster \u2013 don\u2019t match the record of last year, there\u2019s groundwork to be put in place. The process makes the program, and CSI believes it has a strong process.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust having the right people in here is the most important thing,\u201d said Nicole Sarcone, now in her eighth season as head coach. \u201cIf you have the right people, you put it together the right way and you compete, I think we always will be in contention for a top spot and that\u2019s important.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year was very easy for us as a coaching staff. We still had to teach and it\u2019s still new players playing with each other, but we had a lot of girls that were with us for three, four years, and then the newbies were veterans from other colleges. We had no freshmen. So this is a true 180.\u201d<\/p>\n
Krya Rose brings plenty of experience to the CSI roster. (Samantha Flecker-Silverman, Courtesy of CSI athletics)Samantha Flecker-Silverman<\/p>\n
Sarcone, last year\u2019s Met Basketball Writers D-II coach of the year, will rely on three returnees to spread the gospel \u2013 seniors Kyra Rose and Dana Phelan and Dorothy Wiese, a junior who was a 1,000-point scorer at Curtis HS.<\/p>\n
Rose and Phelan provide something Sarcone invented a word for: Veteran-ism.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have earned major minutes since freshman year,\u201d Sarcone said. \u201cThey know what we like; they know what we don\u2019t like; they know what\u2019s acceptable. They know just the habits that we want.<\/p>\n
\u201cDana (9.9 ppg last season and third in the ECC in made threes) has been one of our best defenders for her whole four years here. Kyra (9.5 ppg) has turned into one of our best defenders. For what we look for from them and what they are capable of doing, they should be players that don\u2019t come out of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
The same will probably be true of Wiese once she\u2019s fully recovered from an injury she played through last season. Wiese played in all 30 games last season and provides something a little different \u2013 an overall level of scrappiness that befits her family history. Her mom, the former Cindy Guerriero, and her three aunts, Cathy, Clare and Dot were 1,000-point scorers in high school.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s a kid that\u2019s going to run through a wall for you,\u201d Sarcone said. \u201cWe have the seniors, but she\u2019s our leader. She\u2019s our voice. She\u2019s our leader by example. She\u2019s a \u2018Yes, coach\u2019 kid. She takes charges, she throws her body on the floor, she boards the basketball, she defends. She is communicating, she is the best scrambler on defense.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sarcone will need several of those new faces to emerge and take on big roles. Already the coach sees at least three of the true freshmen \u2013 Arielle Barnes from Mary Louis Academy in Queens, Giuliana Dito from Notre Dame Academy and Gemma Singer from Medgar Evers Prep in Brooklyn \u2013 taking some of the ballhandling responsibilities.<\/p>\n
The Dolphins were undersized last year, with conference and all-Met player of the year Jenalyse Alarcon and Alexa Quirolo battling away inside. CSI will have better positional size, particularly thanks to the two transfers \u2013 5-10 Shonyae Edmonds from upstate Sullivan Community College and 5-11 Racky Kane from LIU Brooklyn, both juniors \u2013 and freshman Myah McKie from Long Island who is listed at 6-3.<\/p>\n
The Dolphins were third in the ECC in threes made and attempted last year. Sarcone sees those numbers going down and the pace of play getting slower \u2013 for the moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way we played last year (lots of pressure, lots of speed, lots of threes) is how I want to play,\u201d Sarcone said. \u201cSome of them benefit a lot more from slowing it down a bit. Maybe us putting them in the right positions to score the basketball, you know, and maybe we\u2019ll get (back to the uptempo game) at some point.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sarcone brought it back around to the key word: Patience.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe standard of how hard we play and how we compete in the small things, I don\u2019t care if you\u2019re a freshman or a grad student, should be there,\u201d she said. \u201cBut, (for the freshmen), it\u2019s a speed adjustment; it\u2019s a strength adjustment; it\u2019s an every-day schedule adjustment.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, you know, our approach is we might have to go over things more than we had to in the past. Break down more than we had to in the past. But that\u2019s OK, because if we\u2019re investing in the long term, the future of them in this program, it\u2019s what\u2019s got to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
NOTES: CSI\u2019s Conference Challenge, sponsored by Jimmy Max restaurant, begins Saturday with CSI facing Franklin Pierce at 5 p.m. and Holy Family of Philadelphia opposing St. Michael\u2019s at 7 p.m. Pierce plays Holy Family Sunday at 1. CSI wraps things up at 3 against St. Michael\u2019s. Holy Family is No. 22 in the WBCA\u2019s preseason Division II rankings \u2026 Hometownticketing.com<\/a> is the place to purchase tickets for all CSI men\u2019s and women\u2019s home games.<\/p>\n THE SCHEDULE<\/p>\n NOVEMBER<\/p>\n 15 \u2013 Franklin Pierce, 5 p.m. (CSI Conf. Challenge)<\/p>\n 16 \u2013 St. Michael\u2019s, 3 p.m. (CSI Conf. Challenge)<\/p>\n 19 \u2013 at Goldey-Beacom, 6 p.m.<\/p>\n 22 \u2013 at East Stroudsburg, 1 p.m.<\/p>\n 25 \u2013 Bentley, 5 p.m.<\/p>\n 29 \u2013 Southern Connecticut, 1 p.m.<\/p>\n DECEMBER<\/p>\n 3 \u2013 Mercy, 5:30 p.m.<\/p>\n 6 \u2013 at St. Thomas Aquinas, 4 p.m.<\/p>\n 10 \u2013 at Adelphi, 5:30 p.m.<\/p>\n 13 \u2013 at U. D of C, 1 p.m.<\/p>\n 17 \u2013 American Int\u2019l, 5:30 p.m.<\/p>\n 20 \u2013 at Pace, 1:30 p.m.<\/p>\n JANUARY<\/p>\n 2 \u2013 Assumption, 1 p.m.<\/p>\n 6 \u2013 Post Univ., 5:30 p.m.<\/p>\n 9 \u2013 at D\u2019Youville, 5:30 p.m.<\/p>\n 11 \u2013 at Daemen, noon<\/p>\n 14 \u2013 St. Thomas Aquinas, 5:30 p.m.<\/p>\n 17 \u2013 at Mercy, noon<\/p>\n 20 \u2013 Caldwell, 5:30 p.m.<\/p>\n 24 \u2013 at Roberts Wesleyan, 2 p.m.<\/p>\n 28 \u2013 Queens College, 5:30 p.m.<\/p>\n 31\u2014at Molloy, noon<\/p>\n FEBRUARY<\/p>\n 6 \u2013 D\u2019Youville, 5:30 p.m.<\/p>\n 8 \u2013 Daemen, 1 p.m.<\/p>\n 14 \u2013 U. of D of C, 3 p.m.<\/p>\n 22 \u2013 Roberts Wesleyan, 1 p.m.<\/p>\n 25 \u2013 at Queens, 7:30 p.m.<\/p>\n 28 \u2013 Molloy, 1 p.m.<\/p>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — The College of Staten Island women\u2019s basketball program in 2024-25 enjoyed its best season…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39776,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-39775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}