Travel hoops: These 2 long-time Staten Island programs have joined forces

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Two of Staten Island’s longest-tenured travel basketball programs have agreed to merge, the Advance/SILive.com has learned.

The Diamonds and Staten Island Finest have joined forces and now have a combined 26 teams in its program, including 16 girls teams and 10 boys squads.

The Diamonds are managed by director Lenny Patton and the Finest are run by founder and director James Fleschner. According to Patton, the program’s girls’ squads will still go under the name Diamonds and the boys’ teams will play under the Finest.

“(The Finest) will do the boys and we’ll do the girls and we’re expecting it to work out pretty good,’’ said Patton, who has been associated with the Diamonds for 28 years, including president for the last 10. ”We’ll be doing training together and going to (AAU) tournaments together.

“This is (the Diamonds) 36th year, so (the Finest) is getting a little name recognition being associated with us and they’ll be able to get some of the brothers of the girls who are already playing with us.

“As for (the Diamonds), we’re getting (more) girls, coaches and teams.

“Now, the way it’s worked out, we’re combining two good organizations and we’re going to have deeper, stronger teams. And I think we’ll continue to grow.’’

Patton, who continually stressed the union as a ‘partnership,’’ said tryouts will once again be the weekend after Labor Day. He said the organization’s mains hubs include the Egbert Intermediate School in Midland Beach, the Markham Intermediate School in Willowbrook and Holy Child in Eltingville, but they’ll likely need more practice sites now.

The organization has teams from second grade to juniors in high school.

“I’m really happy we did this,’’ concluded Patton. ”I obviously hope this partnership works our for the boys and the girls and I believe it will.’’