Raifsnider breaks Bellevue hoops career scoring mark

Girls career lead­ing scorer passes David Fal­knor for most points in school history

By BRAD FRANK
Gazette Sports Editor

Shortly after break­ing the Belle­vue bas­ket­ball career scor­ing record Fri­day, senior Leslie Raif­s­nider, cen­ter, is hugged by fresh­man Carly San­toro (10) while other team­mates greet her on the court with smiles. (Gazette photo by Brad Frank)

Records are kept to cel­e­brate and mea­sure accomplishments—those val­ued expe­ri­ences that so many peo­ple work toward achiev­ing and that so many enjoy observ­ing. To some peo­ple, how­ever, the names, dates, years and num­bers in record books don’t have any more value than the paper they are printed on.

But those inside the Belle­vue High School gym­na­sium Fri­day night can now con­sider them­selves part of a record book and walked away with an immea­sur­able expe­ri­ence in high school athletics—one that was cel­e­brated rightfully.

Belle­vue senior Leslie Raif­s­nider broke the Belle­vue bas­ket­ball career scor­ing record Fri­day in a 78–32 win over Nor­walk in North­ern Ohio League var­sity girls action.

Need­ing 19 points enter­ing the game to pass 1998 grad­u­ate David Fal­knor, she broke his mark with 2:50 left in the third quar­ter Fri­day. Fal­knor scored 1,522 points in his career for the Redmen.

As she has done so many times in her high school bas­ket­ball career, Raif­s­nider fought off mul­ti­ple defend­ers to put the ball through the net. That was no dif­fer­ent Fri­day, as a catch on the left block resulted in a two-pointer against the con­test of three defend­ers, with a bonus free throw to come after being fouled on the play.

Game action stopped to rec­og­nize her 19th point of the game, the 1,523rd of her career. She received the game ball from Belle­vue coach Ryan Orshoski and then pro­ceeded to greet team­mates, coaches, par­ents and fam­ily with hugs.

Raif­s­nider fin­ished the game with 26 points, putting her at 1,530 career points.

“It means a lot,” Raif­s­nider said about hold­ing the record. “I’ve watched bas­ket­ball my whole life and I never really thought this was an accom­plish­ment I could achieve … it’s an amaz­ing feel­ing. It really is.”

The new school record adds to her already long list of accom­plish­ments for the Lady Red. Already the girls career scor­ing leader, Raif­s­nider is one of nine Belle­vue ath­letes to score 1,000 career points. She has also been a first-team selec­tion in the NOL, the North­west Dis­trict and in the state of Ohio and has been Bellevue’s team MVP in each of her first three years in high school.

Fourth-year Belle­vue coach Ryan Orshoski shared his thoughts about Raifsnider’s accomplishment.

“It’s an indi­vid­ual award, but Leslie would be the first to tell you that she couldn’t do it with­out her team­mates. It reflects very highly on our team and what we’ve accom­plished,” he said. “I think that it’s a trib­ute to her hard work. It’s a trib­ute to the play­ers she has around her and has had around her the last four years.

“I’ve said it, and I feel like I’m a bro­ken record, but she has worked very, very hard for this. She’s so deserving.”

Leslie’s father, Mike, the Belle­vue var­sity boys bas­ket­ball coach and pre­vi­ous var­sity girls coach prior to Orshoski, talked about his daughter’s accom­plish­ment Friday.

“Obvi­ously, it’s a really nice indi­vid­ual accom­plish­ment. But the thing I’m most proud of with Leslie is the way she’s played the game for four years of her career,” Mike said. “I think she’s a total team player.

“Even though it might be an indi­vid­ual accom­plish­ment, it’s a team achieve­ment with the type of kids she’s been sur­rounded by the last four years.”

Leslie’s mother, Jacquie, shared her feel­ings as well, but had other things on her mind.
“I’m just very proud of her. She works hard. She couldn’t do it with­out the kids she plays with,” Jacquie said, before mov­ing on to say. “I just really want to beat Shelby. That’s all I want.”

Nor­walk coach Brock Man­let, a Belle­vue grad­u­ate and for­mer assis­tant coach with Orshoski, pro­vided his thoughts about Raifsnider’s record-breaking career.

“She’s a good kid and she works hard. She def­i­nitely deserves what she gets,” Man­let said. “I’ve never seen some­one so con­sis­tent as Leslie has been through­out her career, and that’s why she has the record.”

When asked about her rank­ing among the all-time great­est bas­ket­ball play­ers at Belle­vue and being arguably the best ever at the school, Orshoski and Raif­s­nider pro­vided the night’s final thoughts.

“She’s the most highly dec­o­rated player in our program’s his­tory and I think she’s mak­ing quite a case to be the best bas­ket­ball player in our girls’ his­tory,” Orshoski said. “It’s not apples to apples, com­par­ing to the boys. But you look at the boys’ tra­di­tion … to be sit­ting here, being able to say that no one has ever scored more points than her, boy or girl, what an accomplishment.”

Raif­s­nider said she didn’t nec­es­sar­ily agree but she appre­ci­ates it if that’s how peo­ple think of her.

“It’s means a lot to me, but I don’t know if I agree with that,” she said. “I’ve had a lot of sup­port­ing play­ers that have got­ten me to this point.

“I don’t know if it’s just me, but I appre­ci­ate it if that’s what peo­ple think of me. I play hard every night. I count on my teammates.”

Surely, one can count on Raif­s­nider as one of the best in Belle­vue bas­ket­ball history.

Posted by Brad Frank on Feb 3 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.