George Fox University has achieved too much in women’s basketball during her time there for Keisha Gordon to get wrapped up in her individual honors.
The fact that she reached career scoring milestones in back-to-back games left little to celebrate because the Bruins suffered rare consecutive losses in those games.
That, and the fact that the Heritage High School graduate wasn’t aware they were coming. A 5-foot-10 junior wing, Gordon passed 1,000 career points during a 73-56 loss to Wisconsin-Whitewater in the championship game of the Surf ’n Slam Classic on Dec. 30 at San Diego.
“I honestly didn’t think about it at all,” Gordon said. “The only reason I knew about it was because of my parents. When I made it in the last game, I didn’t even think about it because we lost and there were other things going on, and I honestly think it’s pretty cool and everything, but it’s not something I would dwell on at all. I think we’ve accomplished so much as a team that it would be unfair for me to think of that one accomplishment.”
Last Friday, the Bruins’ 37-game Northwest Conference winning streak was snapped with a 58-56 loss Friday at Lewis & Clark College. They bounced back with an 89-53 rout of Pacific, and are 9-4 on the season, 3-1 in NWC play.
Going into the weekend, Gordon was told she was three points shy of moving into 10th place on the GFU career scoring list — in only 2½ seasons.
“Oh,” said Gordon, who scored 12 points in the game. “I didn’t know that.”
A returning All-Region player and two-time All-NWC selection, Gordon was averaging 16.2 points and 8.2 rebounds a game going into last weekend, and was leading the conference in steals and assist-to-turnover ratio.
She is described as a “flashy all-around player with multiple abilities on the court” and an “intelligent player with fine ball-handling, passing, shooting and rebounding skills” by the school, which is touting her as an All-America candidate.
Gordon has started every game of her George Fox career. She averaged 12.7 and 4.1 rebounds a game as a freshman, when the Bruins were 32-0 champions of NCAA Division III. She averaged 13.9 points and 6.3 rebounds during her sophomore season as the team finished 28-3, reaching the “Elite Eight” of the D-III national tournament.
“I’ve been feeling pretty good about how I’ve been playing,” said Gordon, who has recorded three of her four career double-doubles this season with more focus on getting to the boards as her game develops. “I guess it’s just a change of mind that I’ve had this season, where it’s more like I want to rebound more than I have in the past.
“I know that I’m capable of getting a lot of rebounds for our team. If I can help in that area, we can rebound as a team better. That’s just my goal: to do things that help the team get better so we can be successful as a whole.”
While they have more losses already this season than in the previous two combined, Gordon and the Bruins are making plenty of adjustments this season to a new coach.
Michael Meek, who built a powerhouse high school program at Southridge of Beaverton, Ore., was hired to replace Scott Reuck, who left to take over at Oregon State.
“I think with any change in a program, it’s going to be really hard,” Gordon said — particularly a coach she also considered a life mentor — but she said has come to believe that Meek “is perfect for the job.” Overhauling of the Bruins’ system has been a learning process for the program’s veterans, who Gordon said felt like they were starting over as collegiate players.
“It’s just different,” she said. “There’s a lot of new stuff that we had to learn coming into the season, so the first couple of weeks was just learning all new things. That was a transition. (The veteran players) had to go back to square one, so it was like we were freshmen all over again. … That transition actually went pretty well. We might have had some doubts, but I can fully say for all the players on our team that we trust in him, and the transition has just been getting better every day.”
Gordon said the team played a challenging non-conference schedule, and Wisconsin-Whitewater in particular provided lessons for the Bruins about the level they need to reach.
Friday’s last-second road loss to Lewis & Clark — a team that got two first-place nods over George Fox in the NWC preseason poll — just shows that with a new coach and after losing four seniors, the rest of the NWC might see the Bruins as vulnerable this season.
That’s fine with Gordon.
“I know that this year, overall, the conference teams are really good,” she said. “It’s going to be a really tough year, and I actually am enjoying that people are doubting us more — that we have something to prove, and each day at practice, we’re not going just to play; we’re going to get better every day. We’re thinking, ‘What is Lewis & Clark doing to get better today, and how do I exceed that?’ Having the doubt is great. It keeps us motivated.”
After consecutive trips to the national tournament and a national championship, the Bruins’ goal is naturally to be playing beyond the conference tournament. This year’s D-III Final Four is March 18-19 in Bloomington, Ill.
“It’s hard to not have your goals at that when you’ve made it that far,” Gordon said. “Since our freshman year, we’re always going to have that taste in our mouths and we’re always going to want to get back. For us (veteran players), it’s just helping everyone else understand it. For us, it’s reminding each other every single day what we’re working for and what’s ahead and be playing so we’ll still be playing in March.”
Simmons helps OCU to national dual title
Melissa Simmons won one match by technical fall and pinned her other two opponents as Oklahoma City University claimed its fourth consecutive National Wrestling Coaches Association’s women’s wrestling NWCA National Duals championship at Cedar Falls, Iowa.
The Ridgefield High School graduate helped the Stars improve to 49-0-1 in their last 50 duals, including 16-0 this season. OCU defeated Lindenwood 33-12, Cumberlands 32-7 and Simon Fraser 25-13 at Northern Iowa’s UNI Dome.
A senior, Simmons wrestled her first two matches at the 72-kilogram weight class, then moved up to 80-kg for the dual against Simon Fraser. The Stars made a strategic move of shifting their last four wrestlers up a weight.
OCU has four duals remaining before the Women’s College Wrestling Association’s WCWA National Championships scheduled for Jan. 29 at Atherton, Calif.
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