After opening high school girls basketball season in Indiana with a 93-14 win over Goshen, powerhouse South Bend Washington beat West Gary Lighthouse (Gary) on Saturday 100-0.
While the score is jarring, a news account of the contest offers a little context to the lopsided total.
"We reached out to everybody," South Bend Washington coach Steven Reynolds
told the South Bend Tribune. "LaPorte, Jimtown, any 4A school in the area that we could possibly play, and nobody wanted to play us. And I have to fill a schedule."
The Panthers saw their conference shrink from 12 to eight schools this year and aren't playing in one of their early-season tournaments, leaving four open dates on their schedule, the paper reported.
"I get penalized when I go out of state, as far as rankings and the girls trying to make Indiana All-Star teams and all those kinds of things," Reynolds told the Tribune. "So, this year, I'm like, ‘OK, I'm going to try and stay in Indiana as much as I can.' But when we call teams, they don't want to play us, so then we have to go to that second tier of teams."
South Bend Washington coach Steven Reynolds said his squad didn't try to run up the score in a 100-0 victory over Gary Lighthouse on Saturday. (Photo: Tyler Hart)
West Gary Lighthouse, a program which only played nine games last season and scored a combined 80 points, signed on to play South Bend Washington likely anticipated a one-sided outcome.
The Panthers led 33-0, 66-0 and 86-0 after each quarter. They became the seventh team to post a shutout win in Indiana this century, but the only to reach 100-0.
"When I tell you we could've scored 300 points — we could have," Reynolds told the newspaper. "The thing is I have 12 girls that I put through hell every single day in practice. I am not going to tell them to go out there and not play to the best of their capabilities. We didn't press, we didn't pressure them, we didn't do anything. We played half court, which is not our style. And I tell them be hospitable, have sportsmanship."
The news account also details how Reynolds gathered the Lighthouse girls and coach Kia Matthews and encouraged them to keep fighting.
"Don't worry about the score," the South Bend Washington coach said he told the team. "I knew it was your first game, but this coach is going to help you become better women and better basketball players."
South Bend Washington's senior class won a Class 3A state title in 2022 as well as three straight sectional titles and a Class 4A regional title in 2023.
