There’s a new all-time leading scorer in Alaska girls basketball history, though it’s uncertain whether that mark crosses all class sizes or just the largest category.
As reported by the Anchorage Daily News, Alissa Pili’s 37-point outing in her Dimond High School (Anchorage, Ak.) team’s 64-43 victory against West High School (Anchorage, Ak.), pushed her career scoring total to 2,321 points. That pushed her past the previous Alaska Class 4A career scoring record of 2,290, set by Chugiak (Ak.) High School’s Brit Jacobson.
“We joked around before the game. The team was like, ‘oh we’re just going to pass to Alissa, make her pass the record,’ or whatever,” Pili told Alaska CBS affiliate KTVA. “But, you know, I wasn’t really focused on that during the game, it was just all about the team and what was best to get points up on the board.”
Yet the larger question may be whether Pili, who signed with USC, is the top scorer in Alaska history across all classifications. And there may not be a clear answer.
As noted by the Daily News, Alaska does not have a comprehensive record keeper of any form for high school sports. Alaska sports historian Van Williams told the Daily News that there are no known records for Alaska’s lower classifications of girls basketball, which essentially makes Pili the state-wide scoring record holder … with a permanent asterisk, even if its possible that she doesn’t deserve one.
For now, Pili has bigger things to focus on as she and her teammates chase a state title. With that chase in mind, she still has multiple regular season games and any subsequent playoff contests to pad her all-time scoring lead.
“I’m excited to see what else I can do,” Pili told KTVA. “I’m proud of how far we’ve came as a team and just excited to see what the future holds.”