Sportsmanship, which has been teetering on the edge of irrelevance for the past several years, might have finally met its demise.

Two events this past week — one that caught national attention and one that was noticed by only a few people that happened to be at a local junior varsity game — might have struck a critical blow to the ideal of being a good sport and showing class.

First, the national example.

Yates High School, a Class 4A school in Texas that is ranked as the No. 5 team in the country, defeated Lee High School 170-35 last Tuesday.

No, that is not a misprint. The final margin of victory was 135 points.

Even worse than the final score was the halftime score, which was 100-12.

Yates, which set a Texas state record for points in a game, continued to run and press the far less talented Lee team, apparently in an effort to get to 200 points.

And the worst part is, the Yates coach wasn’t even contrite about the embarrassing display his team put on.

“We practice running, pressing, trapping every day,” coach Greg Wise said. “If we get to a game and I tell them not to do what we do in practice, I am not coaching very well. I am not leaving my starters in the whole game. We have 15 guys, and all 15 play.”

I’m sorry coach, but that just doesn’t wash.

This isn’t college basketball or the NBA, where players are recruited or paid to perform. This is high school basketball, and some schools just don’t have as talented of athletes as others.

Believe me, I know. I’ve been to plenty of basketball games that were a complete mismatch. But most coaches have enough decency to back off and take it easy in the second half, and not try to embarrass their opponent.

But apparently an 88-point halftime lead wasn’t enough for coach Wise.

As bad as that was, just as big of an embarrassment took place right here in Natchez on the same night, when the Prairie View junior varsity girls team defeated Trinity 43-1.

The game was a shutout through three quarters. When Prairie View finally took off their press, up 33-0, Trinity made a free throw in the fourth quarter for its only point.

Come on coach. Why not go for the shutout? That would have really stuck it to those 13-15-year-old girls from Trinity, really embarrassed them something good.

It was bad enough for the Texas team to continue pressing when up 100 points, but at least that was in a varsity boys game.

To continue pressing up 33-0 on an obviously inferior opponent in a junior varsity girls game is just meanspirited.

There is never, ever any reason to hold a team to just one point, especially in a junior varsity game.

Now, I’m not saying tell the players to leave the court and let the other team get wide open layups, but back off a little bit and give them a chance to feel good about themselves for at least a minute.

Once again, this isn’t college or the NBA. I don’t have much of a problem with blowouts in college or pro ball because there usually isn’t such a vast talent disparity.

However, high school is different. The players volunteer their time to be out there on the court and are doing the best they can.

To try and humiliate a weaker team by pressing and running up the score when the game is out of hand is just wrong.

Sportsmanship and class are two valuable lessons that should be learned by today’s youth.

It’s just unfortunate that some of our adults don’t seem to want to teach those lessons.

Jeff Edwards is the sports editor for The Democrat. He can be reached at sports@natchezdemocrat.com.