UConn women’s basketball guard Kayleigh Heckel and Michigan’s Syla Swords aren’t the type of friends to trash talk each other, even on the basketball court.
When the high school teammates face off on opposite sides of Friday’s game between the No. 1 Huskies and No. 6 Wolverines, their former coach, Christina Raiti, thinks there’s a better chance they’ll get in trouble for trying to hug during warmups.
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“Kayleigh’s gonna try to hug Syla beforehand, and Syla is gonna be like ‘Kayleigh, wait until after the game!’” Raiti said with a laugh. “They are so corny, but they were so close, and they love each other, so it’s gonna be really cool for them to play each other. But I have to say, they were probably two of the most fierce competitors we’ve ever had.”
Heckel and Swords are both products of the prestigious girls basketball program at Long Island Lutheran (nicknamed LuHi) in Brookville, N.Y., where they played together from 2022-24. Though they competed against each other once in Big Ten play last season when Heckel was at USC, this year’s reunion comes with high stakes as a top-10 matchup in the Basketball Hall of Fame Women’s Showcase at Mohegan Sun.
Heckel played just four minutes against Michigan when USC beat them on March 8, but she has been an immediate key contributor off the bench for the Huskies since transferring. Her adjustment to playing with the reigning national champions looks seamless, in part because her experience at LuHi set her up to thrive on UConn’s star-studded roster.
“I know she got a lot of flack for it, and I don’t think that was an easy transition when people said ‘Oh, you’re going to transfer to go sit on the bench? Or you’re going to transfer and not be the best kid there?” Raiti said. “There were other schools on her list where she probably would have been the best player and had the ball in her hand more, but I don’t think she’s afraid of playing with other really talented players. I’d like to think that’s something we prepared her for.”
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Heckel played her first two years of high school at Port Chester, where she averaged 34.2 points and 11.1 rebounds as a sophomore. Raiti said there were questions about how Heckel would fit on LuHi’s roster coming from a program where she was used to running the show.
The Crusaders already had a five-star prospect in forward Kate Koval, now a sophomore at LSU, and four other upperclassmen on that team have gone on to play Division I. Swords also transferred in for her junior season alongside her younger sister, Savvy, who is currently a top-20 recruit in the Class of 2026.
But though the transition was challenging at times, ego was never a problem with Heckel. Even at 16 years old, the point guard was a student of the game and eager to adapt in any way she could to become the version of herself that LuHi needed.
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“I think she’s a kid that finds just as much joy in setting others up for success as she does in herself finding success,” Raiti said. “I always think back to her senior year, she found ways to get Syla like five or six extra threes a game just by driving hard and pitching the ball back … She was so excited when she figured out little things like coming to a two-foot stop. That was our nickname for her was Two-Foot, because she watched so much film and we made a simple shift of her playing off two feet when she got in the paint. It made her assists go from five to 10-plus.”
In Heckel’s senior year, the Crusaders finished as ESPN’s No.1-ranked high school team in the country. They lost just two games the entire season, both by a single point to fellow top-five programs, and the second came against Montverde Academy in the semifinals of the Chipotle Nationals tournament, which Montverde went on to win. Koval was the New York State Sports Writers Association Player of the Year, and Heckel and Swords were both first team All-State.
“They’re just really unselfish,” Raiti said. “What was so difficult to guard and play against was really they were okay with whoever stepped up on the day. If it was Kayleigh that needed to score 20, that was great, but if Kayleigh needed to give us double-digit assists on the day, that was also okay as long as we got the job done.”
Heckel’s selfless attitude and relentless work ethic have translated through her first four games at UConn. The sophomore guard is averaging eight points, two assists and 2.8 steals in 20.8 minutes, and she has excelled at finding the Huskies touches beyond the arc with three of her eight assists to date going to sharpshooter Azzi Fudd for 3-pointers.
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Swords, who was ranked No. 4 in the 2024 class, is also thriving on a balanced roster at Michigan. She is one of four players averaging double-digit points through the first four games of 2025-26 with 12.2 per game on top of a team-leading 5.3 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 1.5 steals.
“I love Syla. It’s always great to see her and play against her, and it was awesome playing with her in high school, so I’m excited to see her and compete against her,” Heckel said Thursday after practice. “I think she’s become a really all-around player, and I’m super proud of how far she’s come.”
Raiti will be in the crowd at Mohegan Sun when her former players go head-to-head Friday night accompanied by Savvy and Cece Arico — the daughter of Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico who transferred to LuHi as a junior this season. Raiti joked that they’ll sit in the cheering section of whichever team gets them better tickets, but for the sake of neutrality, the only colors she’ll be repping are LuHi’s red and black.
“It’s funny, because there’s such a competitive nature in the air,” Raiti said. “There’s a lot of (trash) talking on our end. I’m like Cece, have you seen the scout? Who do you think is gonna guard Sarah Strong? … But at the end of the day, I think it’s pretty cool to just see our kids competing at the highest level, making an impact at the next level, and I think those relationships are things that they will never lose, no matter what level they play at.”
