Gordon reflects on 1,000th point
November 17, 2020
Heritage Hills senior Rebekah Gordon scored her 1,000th point on Saturday in Jasper. Gordon joined Abby Wahl as just the second girls basketball player in school history to score 1,000 points.
By COREY STOLZENBACH
sports@dcherald.com
Heritage Hills senior Rebekah Gordon hasn’t quite had a week like the one she just had.
Gordon signed her letter of intent to continue her basketball career at Auburn University on Wednesday, set a Patriots (3-0) single game girls scoring record with 41 points on Thursday and became just the second girls player in school history to score 1,000 points on Saturday.
She banked a 3-point shot in the right corner of Saturday’s game at Jasper, giving the Pats a 60-32 runaway run against the Wildcats (0-1). Gordon finished with 22 points to give her 1,008 and counting in her high school career.
“I honestly never would’ve imagined that this could’ve happened day after day, but I’m just very blessed and excited for the future,” Gordon said of her week.
Pats coach Kim Brown is in her 10th season at the helm at Heritage Hills, and she, too, hasn’t seen one of her players have a week quite like the one Gordon had.
“Not in such a short span of time, no,” Brown said. “It’s been a very exciting week for her.”
Brown noted one of her former players, Abby Wahl, previously did all three of the things Gordon did this past week, but all of it was spread out. Wahl, a 2018 graduate of Heritage Hills, now plays basketball at Eastern Illinois University. She held the previous girls record of 36 points, and is still the all-time leading girls scorer with 1,450 points.
Gordon is in a position where she can eclipse Wahl for the career points record by a girls player this season. The two of them were teammates when Wahl was a senior and Gordon was a freshman.
“From her, I picked up a need to just kind of be a leader on and off the court,” she said of Wahl. “She used her strength — she used that to go against the other team, and I learned that I need to use my strength just to take control of the court and just to keep pushing.”
“That’s pretty special, when you think about it,” Brown said of Wahl and Gordon being teammates. “I’m sure, when Bekah came in, she watched everything that Abby went through, and I assume, she was thinking, ‘I want to do that, too.’ So, the fact they got to play together for one year is pretty special.”
The Pats have run away with their games in the early going this season — outscoring opponents by a combined score 195-97 these first three games. Brown doesn’t think Gordon is doing anything differently, just that she’s doing things consistently, and it’s a culmination of everything she’s done to get to where she is now.
Gordon and her teammates from the Class of 2021 are closing in on another record — the most wins by a Heritage Hills girls basketball class in program history. The seniors have 53 varsity wins as a class, and the record is 57. They can get to 54 on Thursday and 55 on Saturday if they come away with wins against Evansville Harrison and Evansville Bosse, respectively.
“With Avery (Neff) and Nevah (Barnett), I have grown up with them on and off the court,” Gordon said. “And I think just having that special bond, and that drive to want to win and compete at higher levels — it’s just what’s helped us become a better team.”
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