East Brunswick girls enter 2026 on best season start in nearly two decades, but things will heat up quickly in the New Year

As we all get set to take down the 2025 calendars and hang 2026 up on the fridge, there are just three unbeaten girls’ basketball teams left in the Greater Middlesex Conference.

Piscataway Magnet is off to a good start in the Blue National, 7-0 overall. Colonia has been a pleasant surprise in the Red National in its second season under Jill Bachonski. (We’ll see them next Tuesday, January 6th, in a girls/boys doubleheader broadcast live on CJSR.)

At East Brunswick, the Lady Bears are 6-0 heading into the New Year, and not looking back.

Granted, things will pick up in league and divisional play. Head coach Travis Retzlaff, now in his seventh season leading the program, has the girls taking that “one game at a time” mentality, and so far the results have been excellent.

They kicked off the season snapping an eight-game skid against Monroe, its first win over the Falcons since an early January victory in 2022.

They followed that with wins over North Plainfield, South Brunswick and Mount St. Mary, then took a pair of games down at the Holmdel Holiday Showcase, beating Marlboro and the host Hornets Sunday and Tuesday to enter the 2026 portion of the schedule unbeaten, and ranked fifth in the Bellamy & Son Paving Week Three Top Ten.

On the stat sheet, Sophomore guard Ava Catanho leads the way with 21 points per game and 14 treys on the season, and the rest of the lineup is pretty balanced. Junior Sophia Tannura has hit a dozen times from beyond the arc, and is averaging 11.3 points per game, while senior forward Julianna DeLosSantos-Branson is scoring at a 9.7 point per game clip, leading with 5.7 rebounds per game, seven blocks and ten steals.

But the schedule gets tougher quickly. After a Saturday home game against Piscataway and a trip across the Outerbridge to the Coaches Choice NY/NJ Staten Island Challenge, they’ll go back-to-back on the road against St. Thomas Aquinas and Monroe. Both those teams met in the GMC finals last year, and the Trojans have won five straight league titles; they’re the one everyone is chasing.

They’ll meet a rejuvenated Colonia later in the year, and even have a non-conference visit to defending state Group 4 champion Hillsborough on January 22nd, which can be heard live on CJSR.

One day at a time.

Click below to hear East Brunswick girls’ basketball coach Travis Retzlaff talk about the Lady Bears’ 6-0 start to the season with Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko: