Common as extreme blowouts are in high school basketball, a true shutout is still extremely rare. The state of Montana had its first one in any level of recorded organized basketball last weekend, and man, is it a bummer: Froid-Medicine Lake High 102, Brockton High 0.
The Great Falls Tribune has a thoroughly depressing game story, describing how the Brockton girls saw all their best players scratched for illness or other reasons before tip-off, leaving them with a grand total of five. Yes, just five players, none of whom was an upperclassman and none of whom was over 5-foot-7. Meanwhile, the opposing Froid-Medicine Lake had a full roster that included three girls over 6-foot. By the end of the first quarter, they’d stopped recording stats other than the score, and by halftime, Brockton was down 59-0. Things only got worse from there, as one of their starting five left with a knee injury (and, of course, no available substitute) early in the second half, when they switched to a running clock.
The Froid-Medicine Lake coach said he felt bad and wasn’t sure if he could’ve stopped the game himself—it seems like someone should’ve been able to do something, when one team was down to four players and losing by 60-plus points in the second half?—but Brockton coach Terrence Johnson and his girls seemed to have the right perspective:
“My girls did everything possible to score, and we were trying to find a way to get a crooked number up there,” Johnson said. “They did nothing wrong. At the end of the day, they all went home and asked: ‘What’s for dinner, Mom?’”