One final encore for Braden River's Gordon

At the 2021 Manatee-Sarasota Boys and Girls Basketball Senior All-Star Games, one player rose above. 

The event, which also featured 3-point contests and a dunk contest, was held April 8 at Bradenton Christian School, though Lakewood Ranch High boys basketball coach Jeremy Schiller was the event's de facto host. In a rare occurrence, the boys' game did not feature a single player from Lakewood Ranch High, Braden River High or The Out-of-Door Academy. Manatee won the boys game 63-62. 

The girls' game, however, saw a handful of area seniors get a final encore, and that included Braden River's O'Mariah Gordon, the two-time Gatorade Florida Girls Basketball Player of the Year and a Florida State signee. Due to a shortage of players on Sarasota's side, Braden River's All-Stars actually switched teams, so Gordon and fellow Pirate Cheyenne Stubbs went against Lakewood Ranch All-Stars Taylor Young and Jordan Brown, who represented Manatee. 

During the game, Gordon was still doing all the amazing things we have come to expect. Even though the game's result was meaningless, she was giving it everything she had. At one point in the second quarter, Gordon missed a 3-point shot from the left side of the arc, then sprinted to the right corner of the arc to grab her own rebound before it went out of bounds. In the fourth quarter, Gordon connected on her version of an alley-oop from Stubbs — instead of a dunk, she turned the lob pass into a smoother-than-butter reverse layup in midair. 

The "Sarasota" All-Stars would defeat Manatee 59-35. Gordon finished with 14 points, while Stubbs, a Canisius signee, finished with 16 and took home the game's MVP award. Gordon likely could have scored more if she felt like it, but as she's done throughout her career, she looked to get her teammates as many looks as possible. In a game with no stakes, that meant a lot of looks for others. After the game, Gordon said she just wanted to compete against her fellow seniors one last time. 

"I'm so glad I got to finish with a group of players like this," Gordon said. "We've been playing each other since we were freshmen. We've seen each other develop. We all want the best for each other in the future. It was fun to have this game, to go out like this." 

She wasn't done, though. Gordon took part in the evening's 3-point contest, winning the girls' division by sinking 18 shots in 60 seconds. She would later defeat the boys' champion, Southeast High's Galen Washington, by hitting 13 shots in 60 seconds. In my years covering the Manatee-Sarasota All-Star Games, no girls representative has come close to defeating the boys representative. For Gordon, it was no sweat. 

Gordon said she's been having mixed feelings over the last few weeks. She's excited to get to Florida State and start getting college-level ready, she said, but she's also going to miss this area and the people who helped her grow her game from the beginning. 

"I'm just soaking up these last moments," Gordon said. 

I hope people went to see Gordon play locally while they had the chance. Players like her don't come around too often. She's the 31st-ranked player in the country by ESPN, and that's while standing at 5-foot-4. If she was even three inches taller, I believe she'd be in the top 10. Her natural skills certainly deserve that ranking.

She's going to be a stat-stuffing machine at Florida State, and I bet you'll be seeing her skills on SportsCenter, too.