NYC girls basketball team tried not to run up score, still won 117-8

By Cindy Boren February 25 at 2:39 PM

It isn’t easy for a team to finish a game when it’s in the midst of a beatdown, but somehow Brooklyn Collegiate did just that.

The high school girls basketball team from Francis Lewis administered a thrashing Tuesday night, winning the Public Schools Athletic League playoff game 117-8.

That’s 117-8.

“We’re rebuilding for next year,” Collegiate Coach Rodney Johnson told the New York Daily News’ Nick Forrester, “and we plan on being on the other side of this soon.”

Francis Lewis is the defending PSAL champ and Coach Stephen Tsai swore he wasn’t running up the score. After the team sprinted out to a 35-4 first-quarter lead, he pulled most of his starters and called off the press. Even with second-teamers in the game, Francis Lewis didn’t allow a point in the second half.

Gulp.

“I always love it when the girls that don’t get to play are out there and the girls who do get to play are on the bench cheering for their teammates,” Tsai said. “But competitive-wise and game-wise, there wasn’t as much strategy used tonight.”

It’s a delicate situation that requires diplomacy and sportsmanship, something all too often not seen in sports, from both sides. It sounds as if everyone in New York made the best of a situation that seems to happen. Last month, a Detroit high school girls team scored an 80-0 victory and Coach Marissa Thrower said she wasn’t trying to run up the score, either.

“My starters only played 6 minutes in the first quarter, then I put the seniors back in for literally 2 seconds, just so they could get a standing ovation when I took them out because it was senior night,” she said.

And at least both teams were trying the best they could to win.

After spending most of her career in traditional print sports journalism, Cindy began blogging and tweeting, first as NFL/Redskins editor, and, since August 2010, at The Early Lead. She also is the social media editor for Sports.