Milestones are meant to be reached. The bigger the achievement, the longer your legacy lives on.
New Hyde Park girls’ basketball has had six players reach the 1,000-point mark in its history. Maeve Downing is the most recent name to be etched in program history. With 16 points to go on Monday against Cold Spring Harbor, the star point guard surpassed the milestone and finished the evening with 23.
“I’ve always wanted to reach 1,000 points,” Downing said. “As soon as it was mentioned to me, I wanted to get that.”
“We were trying to hide it from her, but I know someone mentioned to her that she was under 20,” said New Hyde Park head coach Michael Bello. “I was trying to hide it from her for as long as possible. All of a sudden, she’s shooting a free throw and someone turns and goes, ‘That was her 16th.’ She’s got six more games plus hopefully some playoffs to add to that number.”
The magnitude of this feat is larger than it appears. In February of 2025, Downing suffered a season-ending torn ACL, cutting her junior season short. She missed seven months nursing her knee in an attempt to get back onto the court.
“When I found out, it didn’t feel real and for a while it didn’t feel real because I was still doing stuff, but it was never sports related,” Downing said. “It was really rough on the mental side of things, but the biggest thing was to just stay positive. That’s what helped me get through it more easily. I was scared that it set me back, but I knew I could still do it [score 1,000 points] through it all.”
The senior had her soccer season to help her get back to full strength for basketball season. She’s Nassau County’s second leading scorer, averaging 20.3 points per game. She’s also averaging 11.6 rebounds, 4.3 assists, 3.5 deflections, just under three steals and over a block per game. While dominating on offense, she makes her presence known on defense.
“She does that with averaging only two fouls a game,” Bello said. “I can put her on the best person to defend, one to five. She can play big or small. Her help defense is insane. She rotates well. In our press, I put her in the back because she can flag down steals, but I can also put her up front, and then she just causes total havoc with her length. She is a complete player.”
Against Herricks on Dec. 29, Downing poured in a career-high 38 points. She capped off the double-double performance with 13 rebounds, eight assists, five deflections and seven steals in the 75-62 win.
“I feel like if my threes go in, I could score way more,” Downing said. “I had five threes, but most of my game is getting to the basket and getting fouled. I felt like everything was going in for me and I was moving the ball quickly in that game. The whole game was fast-paced.”
Downing’s numbers jump off the statsheet, but a skill that’s not measured by numbers is her ability to lead. She’s been a team captain for Bello’s team for the last two seasons.
“Watching her sit on the bench [with the torn ACL] through the end of that season, in the playoffs and watching her become more vocal and supportive of her teammates [helped her grow as a leader],” Bello said. “My other captain, Breanne Noguera, and the two of them both tore their ACLs. I made a decision over the summer to let them coach the entire summer league that we were in. That gave them a really good opportunity to see how their teammates play and see what their teammates are capable of. I saw such growth, and that’s really shown up this season.”
Having a dynamic player like Downing can completely change a team’s trajectory. It can turn a .500 record team into one that wins its league and makes a run at the state championship. It’s also impacted Bello from a coaching standpoint.
“She’s made me better,” Bello said. “When she first came up as a freshman, she made me change the way I coached. I’m much more balanced. I have a better ability to listen and respond and give the athletes what they need, more than trying to force them to do what I felt needed to be done. I told Maeve the first day of practice that whatever she’s gonna do, we’re gonna work around. I used to set up plays and everything like that. Maeve is not an athlete who needs plays. She creates the play. So, it’s been really fun to watch, and she’s allowed me to learn to be much more of a hands-off coach.”
New Hyde Park is 8-3 overall and 5-1 in League 3-AA. Its league record is tied for first with Jericho, with six games to go on the ledger. New Hyde Park will compete for a league title, county title, and perhaps more, on the back of Downing, before she attends Catholic University this upcoming fall, where she’ll play soccer.
