We regret to report that another high school athlete has fallen due to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a thickening of the heart muscle that generally goes undetected in the standard preseason medical physical.

Shannon Veal, a junior point guard from Baton Rouge, La., who was being recruited by LSU, collasped on the court Monday night after making two free throws just before halftime during a Louisiana state playoff game. Veal was treated at the scene and later pronounced dead. The game was suspended when Veal collapsed and her Glen Oaks teammates returned the next night and won the resumed contest.

We've said this before and we'll say it again: If the congressmen who grandstand so vociferously about the potential impact of steroids are serious about doing something to make high school athletics safer, they would move to make heart tests more affordable so they can become standard parts of physicals. If that were the case, real threats like HCM could be detected in time and lives like Shannon Veal's could be saved.