On Feb. 7, 1990, Lisa Leslie walked up to Gil Ramirez. The Morningside (Inglewood, Calif.) center approached the South Torrance coach, asking for a massive favor before he and his team departed the bench and made their way to the visitors locker room at halftime.

“I asked the coach before they left if they would let me score three more baskets,” Leslie told the Los Angeles Times.

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The reason the center approached the opposing coach with such a bold request? The future Hall of Famer had already broken the record for the most points scored in a half when she put up 101 points through the first two quarters. She was five points away from breaking what she believed to be the national record for the most points scored in a high school basketball game. In 1982, Riverside Poly star forward Cheryl Miller dropped 105 points on 47-of-50 shooting in the team’s 179-15 win to extend its record 70th straight victory.

Ramirez consulted with his six-player team and simply told Leslie no; his team decided it would not take the court again to help in her pursuit of the record. When the second half was set to begin, the South Torrance team was nowhere to be found. It forfeited the second half of the game, especially after losing two players who fouled out trying to defend the 6-foot-5 senior. Ramirez was suspended for the remainder of the season for violating the Southern Section sportsmanship rules.

Even crueler, though, is Leslie believed she had tied Miller’s record when she left the floor that night. The referees penalized South Torrance with a pair of delay-of-game violations, which sent Leslie to the stripe for four technical-foul shots that she made to start the beginning of the second half. League officials later nullified the foul shots, meaning Leslie fell just short of tying Miller.

“I was kind of heartbroken I didn’t get the record,” Leslie told the Times.

Here’s the other plot twist: Leslie was 56 points away (a huge number, but, considering her play, feasible) from toppling the true record for the most points scored by a boys or girls basketball player. Back in 1924, Lonaconing Central’s (Md.) Marie Boyd scored 156 points in a 163-3 win over Ursuline Academy (Cumberland, Md.), which remains a Guinness Book of World Records stat. She also made 77 field goals that day. Boyd was the first player — male or female — to score 100 points in a basketball game.

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“See, I never talk about this,” Boyd told The Gadsden Times (Ala.) in 1982, three weeks after Miller’s accomplishment. “I never tell anybody these things about myself,” she continued. “I could be in a group, and I never discuss it. I never say, ‘Oh, I hold the world’s record.’ It would be embarrassing.

“The town folks were all happy. (The national media) didn’t give any recognition. It was just the rivalry and sportsmanship in the towns that belonged to the league. … It would have been fine if they just ended it there, and I would have been through with all this. Let her (another athlete) be it. I couldn’t care. I’ve lived on the story of it long enough. Let someone else — if she can.”

Had South Torrance returned to the court, there is very little doubt Leslie would have easily topped Miller’s record and maybe even given Boyd her wish for someone to overtake hers.

The Dial Award recipient — given to the top high school female athlete in the nation — finished the game having made 37 of 56 field goal attempts and 27 of 35 free throws through the first 16 minutes of action. Leslie scored 49 points in the first frame, then followed that up with 52 points in the second quarter. For the math whizzes out there, that’s about six points per minute, so it’s more than conceivable Leslie would’ve etched her name in the history books had South Torrance not refused to play the second half.

(Top photo: Mike Mattina / Getty Images)