In the local diocesan girls’ varsity basketball scene, a handful of senior student-athletes recently reached the celebrated mark of 1,000 career points.
It’s an impressive feat since most girls spend only two seasons—junior and senior years — on the varsity squad.
For Fontbonne Hall Academy, Bay Ridge, standout Noelle Polanco, 1,000 points barely scratched the surface of what her enduring legacy will be. The senior shooting guard has already surpassed the 1,500-point mark, making her the all-time leading scorer in school history.
Polanco, a three-time Tablet All-Star, averaged 18.0 points per game last season en route to being named to the CHSAA Tier 2 All-League Team. She experienced the rare accomplishment of tallying her
1,000th career point as a junior. Her basketball journey began in the diocesan Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) program at St. Francis de Sales, Belle Harbor — her family’s parish and where she attended elementary school. While Polanco participated in volleyball, soccer, and swimming at the parish, she gravitated more toward basketball, which she felt most comfortable playing.
By the second grade, Polanco was already playing for competitive Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) programs. When it came time to make a high school decision, Fontbonne instantly rose to the top.
“I loved that Fontbonne was an all-girls school,” said Polanco, the 5-11 team captain for the Bonnies. “I liked the area around the school, and I also liked that it’s a mini-campus, and we get to switch between buildings.”
Her Fontbonne athletic career includes soccer and three years of volleyball. However, basketball remained her top sport, and she was selected for the varsity level in her freshman year.
Game by game and week by week, Polanco began to find her groove on the court. She was a leading contributor to the team right away and started to rack up the points, though she did not yet comprehend that she would eventually sit atop the program’s points list.
“I was honestly not expecting this at all,” she said. “Going into Fontbonne as a freshman on varsity, I was a little nervous because I’d be playing with all upperclassmen. After my sophomore year, I was over 800 points, and I knew the top scorer was a little over 1,000, so I thought it was possible at least by the end of my senior year.”
That previous top scorer was Katie Marquardt, who in 2018 became the first student-athlete in school history to score 1,000 points. The senior Marquardt, also a product of St. Francis de Sales CYO, reached the mark during the Bonnies’ final home game of that season.
When Polanco hit 1,000 as a junior, she became the youngest in school history to arrive at the milestone. It’s extremely rare for a junior to score that many points, but Polanco benefited from two additional years on the varsity team.
She said she first relied on her 3-point shooting ability to score points, but her mentality changed the past two seasons.
She’s focused more now on driving to the basket to help the possibility of getting fouled and then make her free throws.
For the Bonnies’ prolific scorer, it was always a matter of when — not if — she would break the program scoring record. At 1,500-plus and counting, she will leave Fontbonne as the program’s all-time leading scorer with a final total that will be hard to match.
While Polanco is now the record-holder, it has been a team effort to help her reach the milestone. As the saying goes, a star is typically only as good as their supporting cast.
“I give a lot of credit to my teammates,” she said. “They are always trying to get me the ball and always setting screens for me. If I’m running down for a fast break, they always get it to me.”
As this CHSAA season winds down, Polanco is excited to continue her hoops career at the University of Charleston in West Virginia, a member of the NCAA’s Division II. She visited the school right before this season and loved the campus and the welcoming atmosphere created by the coaches and players.
If she continues her torrid pace scoring the basketball, don’t be surprised if she someday becomes the University of Charleston’s all-time points record-holder as well.