Shannon Veal stepped to the foul line, steadied herself and sank two free throws. Then she signaled her coach that she needed a breather.

Courtesy WAFB

Shannon Veal, pictured on the bottom right

But play in the Class 4-A playoff game at Glen Oaks High School in Baton Rouge had already begun, and before coach Harold Boudreaux could replace her, the 17-year-old Louisiana high school star collapsed and died.

"It's the kind of thing I'll always look back on, but it was just seconds," Boudreaux recalled in a telephone interview on Tuesday. "She was guarding a player and just keeled over. You could hear her head hit the floor."

Paramedics arrived in minutes Monday night, began CPR and used a defibrillator as the crowd of about 200, including her father, Gilbert Veal, who was recording the game, and an LSU scout watched.

"Nothing can prepare you for this," Boudreaux said. "The only comfort is that she was doing what she loved. She wasn't interested in playing basketball, she was in love with playing basketball. She was a real basketball player."

Veal, a 5-foot-8 junior point guard, was the district MVP, Boudreaux said, averaging 14 points, 5.5 assists and two steals a game.

"She was everything you want in a point guard," Boudreaux said. "She could read the court and control the game. But she was also everything you want in a young lady. She was an MVP at life." Veal had received letters from more than 75 schools, including LSU, Seaton Hall, Virginia Tech and Tulane, Boudreaux said.

"She was definitely headed for a Division One school," he said.

The cause of death was not known on Tuesday. Veal was diabetic, but according to Dr. Kim Edward LeBlanc, chairman of the Department of Family Medicine at the LSU Medical Center and a specialist in sports medicine, that should not have prevented her from playing.

"Generally if you have well controlled diabetes there should be no problems, especially at that age," LeBlanc said. "In fact, we encourage diabetics to exercise."

All high school athletes must have a complete physical every 365 days, said Kenny Henderson, commissioner of the Louisiana High School Athletic Association.

One study of sudden death in young athletes done in 1995, found the ratio of males to females was about 10 to 1. Those statistics are because so many more males that females played high school athletics, LeBlanc said, and will even out as more girls take up sports.

The most common cause of sudden, unexpected death among young athletes is hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, LeBlanc said. The condition makes it difficult for blood to leave the heart, he said, but is difficult to discern.

"It is rare enough that there is no recommendation to screen for it," LeBlanc said.

Glen Oaks' game was called with 1:34 left in the first half. It was scheduled to be finished Tuesday night.

At the time it was called, Glen Oaks was up 31-17, Veal had scored 11 points.

Taking the court again would be a tough test for his team, Boudreaux said.

"But I told them, let the cries out, let the tears out then regain yourself and finish what she started," Boudreaux said.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)