Rebecca Hardt, 46.

Nikki Lima, left, and Rebecca Hardt put Attleboro basketball on the map.

I can't give you an accurate number of the number of local female basketball players about whom I wrote on a regular basis during my 41-year career as a sportswriter at The Sun Chronicle of Attleboro. But a quick estimate gave me a number exceeding 6,000. And that number has continued to grow in the four years of my retirement as a writer as a result of my play-by-play announcing for local cable TV systems.

I may not be able to recall all of those young women's names instantly, but fortunately, I have volumes of archives that can produce complete statistics with just a few keyboard clicks. But of course, there are many for whom no research is necessary for me to remember them -- which only serves to heighten the sadness I feel when one of them is lost.

So it was this morning when I read that former Attleboro High School standout Rebecca Hardt had died in her sleep on Tuesday of this week.

In a year in which I've already endured too many sledgehammer swings to my heart, hearing this news hit me hard. I covered quite a few of Rebecca's 72 high school games from 1990-94, which was a period of rebirth for the Attleboro High girls' basketball program. In tandem with her teammate of those four seasons, Nikki Lima, Rebecca put the Bombardiers back on the map in local girls' basketball and put down the foundation for future successes for the program.

Former Attleboro star Rebecca Hardt.

She was 46 years old at her passing. Far too young. And, coming just two months after the death of her father, Dave, who was a true icon in Attleboro High athletic history -- well, it's just a terrible time in the Jewelry City.

My recollections of Rebecca coincide with those of Nikki Lima, who's now known as Nikki Correia and is the head coach of the North Attleboro High School girls' basketball team. Those two came to the Attleboro varsity in the 1990-91 season and immediately embarked upon a course that would lead them to become the first of three sets of AHS teammates that would reach 1,000 career points in the same season.

Nikki was the high-energy guard that could score and distribute with equal skill, and always played with a broad smile on her face. Rebecca was the gazelle-like frontcourter whose quiet grace and athleticism made everything she did look easy -- almost too easy to believe at times. I can recall several times when I'd be sitting in the stands at the old AHS gym and groaning audibly because an old and overmatched referee, unable to keep up with the speed of the game, would whistle a foul against Rebecca as she attempted to block a shot even though the block was clearly clean. It was as if the referee just assumed that a superbly agile 6-foot-1 forward could not leap high into the air from behind the shooter and pluck the ball away without making contact. And this happened far too often.

Sometimes, having two players of elite talent on the same team might lead to conflict. But the skills displayed by Rebecca and Nikki were complimentary in nature, and they fed off each other's talents. And they knew that would be the case from the very moment they entered Attleboro High. Here's what Nikki had to say about that to Sun Chronicle sportswriter Tyler Hetu in a very touching story that appeared in Wednesday's paper.

"When her and I got there, from Day 1, the chemistry with her and I was like nothing else," she said. "Rebecca didn’t care about accolades, or the stats, or being the No. 1 girl. She just went out there and played. I say it about her all the time, I don’t think she realized how good she really was because she was just dominating, but she was humble. She’d kind of go through the motions and still give you a double-double.”

From a 1-17 initial season, the Hardt-Lima combination turned around the program and led Attleboro to 13-8 and 14-8 seasons over the next two years. That led us to create the page you see at the top of this post. With the help of graphic artist Mike Forgette, we dubbed Rebecca and Nikki as "Attleboro's Dynamic Duo" to introduce our 1993-94 girls' basketball preview.

That was no overstatement. They were that good, and so much fun to watch. Their team was 40-42 over their four seasons as postseason success would elude them in the tough MIAA Division 1 field, but I'm certain that their elevated level of play was inspirational to younger Bombardiers-to-be -- some of whom would forge a team later in the decade that would play in a state semifinal at Boston Garden.

Rebecca played in 72 games over four years, missing six in her freshman year and four as a senior. She averaged just under 17 points a game for her entire career, finishing with 1,221 -- the second-best total for Attleboro High girls and fourth overall in school history. She held the girls' record for 23 seasons before Sarah Deyo (1,341 points) passed her in 2017.

She also shared the school's single-game record for girls under five-player rules with 33 points, achieved in her junior year, with Emily Houle and Julia Strachan. The only female player at AHS to surpass that was Rebecca King, who tossed in 44 in a 1953 game against Mansfield when girls played six a side, three of them couldn't cross the center stripe, and the center could stand in the lane all day without penalty.

Rebecca Hardt's career was one of constant improvement. She averaged 10.9 points a game as a freshman, 16.1 as a sophomore, 18.3 as a junior and 20.6 as a senior. And her success didn't prevent Nikki Lima from carving out her own place in the AHS record books, as she finished with 1,030 points over 79 games. Thus, they became the first of three sets of Bombardier basketball players that would graduate as 1,000-point scorers from the same team, followed by Leland Anderson and Derek Swenson in 1999, and Bryant Ciccio and Qualeem Charles in 2020. Sarah Deyo and Emily Houle also played together for three of their four seasons, and both would eventually go over the 1,000-point plateau.

Rebecca would go on to play at what's now Bryant University, under current coach Mary Burke.

The poignancy of Rebecca's passing is multiplied in that it comes less than two months after the death of her father. Dave Hardt was perhaps Attleboro's most accomplished athlete in multiple sports, and he went on to play at Kentucky and was drafted by the New England Patriots as a tight end in 1971. I attended Dave's only game as a Patriot -- the first game at Schaefer Stadium in Foxboro -- in which he suffered a career-ending knee injury on special teams.

The area has lost some wonderful people this year -- first former North Attleboro High football and baseball coach Bob Guthrie, then Heidi Deppisch, the sharpshooting forward of the 1987 state Division 2 champion basketball team from North. And now, Rebecca Hardt. My heart goes out to their families and friends, and also to those that just enjoyed watching them participate in sports, as I did.