When is losing 13-0 a victory? When you lost your previous match-up by 50

Some people insist that there are no such things as moral victories in sports, but those people have probably never been on the sad end of a state record 53-0 beatdown in a High School baseball game, only to get another crack at their tormentors a month later and cut 40 runs off the deficit like Dallas Samuell did to Richardson Lake Highlands in a bad-but-not-so-horrific 13-0 loss.

With improvement like that, if these squads get to face-off for yet a third time one month from now, Dallas Samuell could maybe even win (okay, so not really, but they could probably at least get on the board).

In a rematch of the most lopsided prep baseball game in Texas history, Lake Highlands defeated Samuell 13-0 on Friday night, according to The Dallas Morning News.

A month ago, the final score was either 53-0, according to the scoreboard, or 57-0, by the winning coach’s tally. Either way, the outcome renewed discussions of sportsmanship in high school athletics.

53 runs, 57 runs, who’s counting? Well, other than the coach of Lake Highlands, I mean.

The “discussions of sportsmanship in high school athletics” come-up whenever a story hits about some ridiculously lopsided football/girl’s basketball/soccer/rugby/volleyball/water polo/golf/math competition/men’s gymnastics score in the high school ranks as those who are prone to clutch pearls wonder aloud about the lessons we impart on our children when the reality is that high-school athletics (especially in a place like Texas) is an extremely wide-ranging field encompassing thousands of students of occasional disparate talent and hundreds of coaches of often disparate method. Blow-outs happen, just as close-calls and mundane victories and every other possible outcome along the spectrum of competition. That’s the only lesson, really.

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Like Highlands wins big again, but not by 50 [Associated Press]