Sometimes you don’t fully appreciate greatness while you’re watching it.

Then the years pass.

Records get broken. New stars come along. Generations change. And one day you go back and really look at what somebody accomplished and think: Wait a minute. She did WHAT?

That’s how I feel looking back at the high school career of Carrie Bordas at Aliquippa.

I knew Bordas was great. Anybody who knows Western Pennsylvania girls basketball history knows her name.

But sometimes a player’s accomplishments become almost more impressive with time because you finally understand how difficult they were. And more than three decades after Carrie Bordas graduated from Aliquippa in 1990, her resume is ridiculous.

 

She Left Aliquippa as the WPIAL’s All-Time Leading Scorer

Let’s start with the number that immediately jumps off the page. 2,658 points.

When Bordas finished her career in 1990, she was the all-time leading scorer in WPIAL history. Not just at Aliquippa. Not just in Beaver County. The entire WPIAL.

At the time, her total was the record among both boys and girls.

Think about what that means.

Western Pennsylvania has produced generations of unbelievable basketball players, and when Carrie Bordas walked out of Aliquippa High School for the final time, nobody in WPIAL history had scored more points than her.

That’s not just having a good career. That’s leaving as the standard everybody else is chasing.

But She Wasn’t Just Putting Up Numbers

This is what makes Bordas’ career different.

Sometimes you’ll see a player with an enormous scoring total, but they didn’t win much.

That wasn’t Carrie Bordas. She won four consecutive WPIAL championships. Four. Freshman. Sophomore. Junior. Senior. Aliquippa won the WPIAL every single year of her high school career.

The Quips also won back-to-back PIAA state championships in 1989 and 1990. Over Bordas’ four seasons, Aliquippa went an incredible 112-13, won four undefeated section championships, four WPIAL championships and those two state titles.

So when we talk about her 2,658 points, understand that these weren’t empty numbers. She was putting up huge numbers while playing championship basketball.

There is a major difference.

 

Look at Her Senior Year

This is the part that made me appreciate her career even more.

As a senior, Bordas averaged: 26 points. 10 rebounds. 6 assists. 4 steals. From a 5-foot-7 guard.

Read those numbers again.

She wasn’t just a scorer. She was rebounding, creating for teammates, defending and impacting basically every part of the game.

And then came her final high school basketball game.

There was no quiet ending. There was no disappointing finish. Bordas scored 34 points as Aliquippa defeated Trinity, 89-62, to win its second consecutive PIAA championship.

Her teammate Mona Gaffney also scored 34.

So Carrie Bordas’ final appearance in an Aliquippa uniform ended with 34 points and a state championship.

That’s about as storybook as a high school career can end.

 

Time Can Make Us Forget How Special Somebody Was

This is one reason I enjoy going back through Western Pennsylvania basketball history.

The further we get away from an era, the easier it becomes to forget.

Today’s players have Hudl. They have Instagram. They have TikTok. They have YouTube highlights. You can pull out your phone and watch somebody’s greatest high school moments whenever you want.

Players from Carrie Bordas’ generation didn’t have that luxury.

Unless you were there, saw them play, saved an old newspaper or happened to have somebody record a game, a lot of those memories eventually become stories.

And stories fade.

That’s how somebody who once left high school as the greatest scorer in WPIAL history can eventually become a name that younger basketball fans might not even know.

That’s why history matters.

 

That Aliquippa Team Was Special

Bordas wasn’t doing it alone, either. Those Aliquippa teams were loaded.

Mona Gaffney finished with more than 2,000 career points herself, and coach Donna Richey built one of the greatest girls basketball dynasties Western Pennsylvania has ever seen.

Bordas and Gaffney were both named to the Pittsburgh Press “Finest Five” in 1990, and the 1989-90 Aliquippa team was eventually inducted into the WPIAL Hall of Fame.

That’s another important part of remembering great players correctly.

You can celebrate the individual without forgetting the team.

Carrie Bordas was historically great. And Aliquippa was historically great.

Both can be true.

 

And Her Basketball Career Didn’t End at Aliquippa

After high school, Bordas went on to St. Bonaventure, where she played all four seasons.

College basketball records show her appearing in 98 games for the Bonnies from 1990-94.

But to me, what happened after Aliquippa shouldn’t determine how we remember what she accomplished there. That’s something we sometimes get wrong when discussing high school athletes.

We look at where somebody went to college. We look at whether they became a professional. And then we use what happened afterward to determine how great we think they were in high school.

I don’t believe history should work that way. Judge the high school career for what it was.

And Carrie Bordas’ high school career speaks for itself.

2,658 points. Four WPIAL championships. Two state championships. The WPIAL’s all-time scoring record when she graduated. 34 points in the final game of her career to win another state championship.

Thirty-six years later, those accomplishments don’t look less impressive. They look more impressive.

Sometimes time makes people forget how good a player was. But sometimes going back through the history reminds you just how special they really were.

Carrie Bordas wasn’t simply one of the best girls basketball players of her generation. She put together one of the greatest high school basketball careers Western Pennsylvania has ever seen.

And that’s a name that shouldn’t get lost to time.