Sports

HS star fueled by memory of brother

Whenever Saniya Chong is tired, whenever she’s frustrated or in pain and wants to give up, her thoughts turn to her brother Andrew. The oldest Chong sibling is her battery.

“Andrew really inspires me to keep going,” Chong said.

Chong, one of the best basketball players in New York State and a budding national prospect, can only see and hear Andrew now in her mind. When she was in fifth grade, Andrew – the one who taught her how to play basketball, the one who she tagged along with everywhere – committed suicide at the age of 20, sending Chong’s life into upheaval.

Her family left The Bronx to live near relatives of her mother, Leslie, in Charlotte, N.C., to escape the tragic memories. Andrew has never been far from Saniya’s mind since then. She keeps a picture of him in her room and still hears his voice in her head, giving her advice on and off the court.

“It was very difficult,” Chong said. “Days had to keep going. I just couldn’t isolate myself from the world.”

The lanky, 5-foot-9 rising junior point guard is now an absolute superstar at Ossining HS in Westchester, where she moved with Leslie, Andrew Sr. and Andre, the middle child, for ninth grade. Chong, 16, averaged 33.8 points per game this past winter, posted the second highest single-game total in Section 1 history (61 points) in the Class AA quarterfinals and finished the season with more than 1,200 career points.

If she has two similar years to her sophomore campaign, the budding national prospect could reach 3,000, putting her in the top four in New York State history. The number would be particularly impressive considering most of the high scorers played varsity starting in seventh or eighth grade.

Chong currently has college offers from Ohio State and Virginia Tech and interest from Louisville, St. John’s, Providence, Old Dominion, Davidson, Marist and St. Bonaventure. UConn also likes her and Ossining coach Dan Ricci said he expects to hear from coach Geno Auriemma soon.

“She’s a dynamic player with game-changing ability,” one Division I assistant coach said. “She can flat out score the ball, will be a very good Division I player and still has upside as she grows into her body. She can score no matter who is guarding her and always finds a way to put the ball in the basket.”

As prodigious a scorer as she is, Chong sees herself as a point guard, the position she will likely play at the next level. She prefers passing to scoring, but at Ossining, which she led to the NYPHSAA Class AA semifinals, she has to put up numbers in bunches, Ricci said, for the team to be successful.

“She’s not one of those kids who cares about the accolades,” said Bryan Williams, her godfather and the director of her Westchester Hoopers AAU organization. “She’s just very happy go lucky. The awards and everything are nice, but she doesn’t really care about that. She’s more into her teammates, more into going out there and having fun.”

Williams remembers a game in which the Hoopers were winning by 20 back when Chong was in fifth grade. She approached him in the fourth quarter, telling him that there was one girl who had yet to play and that Williams should put her in.

“That’s why I tell people she’s way advanced beyond her years in how she thinks,” Williams said.

Chong defers to others off the court as well. She’s shy and uncomfortable with all the attention she has gotten in Ossining, a small town. Leslie says she has become somewhat of a local celebrity, hearing people calling her name even on the road.

“The community really has really taken to her,” Ricci said.

Chong could end up being one of the best players in Section 1 history and not just because of her natural ability. She wasn’t a good shooter as recently as her freshman season, but Ricci worked hard with Chong on her release and she has become a big-time threat from beyond the arc, also raising her free throw percentage to 82 percent. Chong had seven 3s in that 61-point performance against John Jay-East Fishkill.

Andrew always knew she had it in her. He would take her to the park before she was even in middle school to play with him and his friends. Never mind that they were a decade apart in age.

“She was really close to him,” Leslie said. “That was her older brother. He would be out playing and he would take her on his team. He didn’t care.”

The funny thing is the Chongs would often win those games together. Saniya is still coming up victorious with Andrew by her side in her mind.

“He would be really proud of me,” she said. “I could see him right now just smiling so hard, just really happy for me.”

mraimondi@nypost.com