Wheeling Park basketball star Alexis Bordas chooses Duquesne | News, Sports, Jobs

ALEXIS BORDAS

WHEELING – One of the most successful basketball players in Wheeling Park High School history has made her college decision.

Rising senior Alexis Bordas will attend NCAA Division I Duquesne University to continue her academic and athletic career, she made the announcement official via social media on Saturday.

“I feel like it was everything. I can’t tell you anything bad about Duquesne,” the 5-foot-8 Bordas said Sunday morning of her decision. “Duquesne checked all the boxes. It’s a great basketball school in a great league. It’s close to home and the head coach is the winningest coach in the history of the program. The school is Catholic, and so am I. It was a perfect fit.”

Was the appeal of playing locally a decisive factor in your decision?

“I’ve said before that I would have gone far away to play. I wasn’t someone who just wanted to stay close, but when it came down to it, that was one of the reasons I chose Duquesne,” she added. “I love having my family watch me play. My parents and grandparents come to all of my games, as do most of my cousins.”

The left-hander wanted to make the decision before her last season.

“I always said I wanted to make my decision before the start of my senior year…sometime in August or September.”

The two-time West Virginia Gatorade Player of the Year, two-time Mary Ostrowski Award winner and two-time West Virginia Class 4A first-team All-State player also received Division I offers from Youngstown State University, Xavier University, Stetson University, American University, Purdue Fort-Wayne and Robert Morris University.

“Playing in Division I has probably been my goal since middle school,” she noted. “I always wanted to play at the highest level. Once I started playing at a high level in the UAA, I really focused on getting to the DI.”

“Playing in the UAA really helped me a lot. Most of the Division I coaches would watch our games as I got older,” she said. “A lot of the closer coaches would come to my high school games as well. Duquesne would come to a lot of my high school games, which was nice.”

The Dukes are members of the Atlantic 10 Conference and are coached by Dan Burt, a West Liberty University graduate who is considered the most winningest coach in Duquesne history. He is entering his 12th season with the university in Pittsburgh and his 18th with the team.

Having accomplished her primary goal of winning the West Virginia state championship, Bordas will begin her senior season with the Patriots with a completely different lineup. Wheeling Park lost three players to graduation, another transferred, and teammate Lala Woods, a University of Maine recruit, suffered a season-ending knee injury last summer.

“The goal is always to win the state championship,” Bordas emphasized. “I want us to go as far as we can and have another go. Our team will be different this year, but I’m confident we can do it again. Personally, I’d like to potentially break the all-time points record and reach 2,000 points in my career, but team goals always come first.”

Bordas enters her final season with 1,815 career points. She has also collected 440 career rebounds and sunk 266 three-pointers, including a program-record 99 last winter.

Their journey would not have been possible without a special support team.

“I want to thank my parents for always taking me everywhere because I have a lot of siblings. My parents sacrificed a lot so I could play basketball,” she said. “I want to thank all of my high school and AAU coaches who helped me, as well as my coaches and teammates who pushed me every day in practice. I also want to thank everyone in the community for their support.”

Wheeling Park head coach Ryan Young said he was fortunate to coach a talent like Bordas.

“Alexis is a model player. She does everything right,” he said. “She’s talented, but that’s because she’s put in so much work to get where she is. Other kids see that and respond to it. That’s why we’re so good.”

“We were winning before Alexis and Lala (Woods) came here, but they took it to a new level. They are players of a generation.”

Bordas won a UAA national title this year with the West Virginia Thunder 17U.

Bordas is still undecided about what path she will take in college regarding her major, but her ultimate goal is to become a surgeon.

She will be the second Ohio Valley basketball player to attend Duquesne. Brooke graduate Angela Staffileno played for the Dukes from 2015-2020.

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