Alexis Gordon raised standard for Covenant Christian

By Brian McCallum, FLORIDA TODAY | July 27, 2016 1:23 pm

About a week before the high school girls basketball playoffs started this past season, Alexis Gordon said she would be disappointed if her Covenant Christian team didn’t make it to the state tournament.

Alexis Gordon of Covenant Christian is FLORIDA TODAY’s Girls Basketball Player of the Year.

Mission accomplished.

Gordon and the Lions breezed through the regional playoffs, outscoring their quarterfinal and semifinal opponents,141-46. She then led them on the road to defeat Sarasota Christian by 25 points in a regional final.

That led to the first state semifinal appearance in CCS history.

Gordon has already headed south and is at Florida International, where she will study and play basketball for the university. Because of her performance as a high school senior, including her 21-point scoring average, she is the FLORIDA TODAY Girls Basketball Player of the Year.

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Although her on-court game play set her apart from most girls basketball players in Brevard County, it was what she did without the ball that most caught the eye of her coach, E.J. Murray.

“More than the points and the winning, I was really impressed with the way she led this young team,” he said. “She didn’t make it all about her.”

There was a bit of sacrifice in that. At the same time Gordon was attempting to lead CCS to places it had never been before, she was trying to earn scholarship offers from college recruiters. Yet, she chose the team’s success over her own stats.

“I can’t win a basketball game by myself,” she said. “I don’t like being that type of player, and I don’t want people to see me like that.”

While playing basketball was always a fun thing for her as a young child, by the time she reached eighth grade she began to see it as something she’d like to do as long as possible.

“To be honest, I always knew college basketball was what I was going to do,” she said, herself the daughter of a scholarship college basketball player. “It’s always been a drive for me.”

Contact McCallum at 321-242-3698 or bmccallum@floridatoday.com. Follow @Brian_McCallum on Twitter and facebook.com/FLtoday.brianmccallum.

Viera repeated with Walsh in lead

2016 All-Space Coast Girls Basketball

First team

Alexis Gordon, Senior, Covenant Christian

Dee Lampkin, Sophomore, Heritage

Alyssa Laudato, Senior, Palm Bay

Kayla Shepperd, Sophomore, Melbourne CC

Lapresha Stanley, Junior, Rockledge

E.J. Murray, Coach, Covenant Christian

Second team

Mariah Batz, Sr., Astronaut