A 6th grade girls team from Kentucky was set to go for the year-end championship tournament, but was told they were banned due to fears boys teams might 'retaliate' if they lost to the girls team.
And maybe this is why the girls were shut down ... On Feb 28 in an event in Alabama the girl's team, who were forced to play in the boy's league, won the championship but the trophy went to the losers instead.
Next Level Girls Basketball is a youth team based in Wilder, Ky., that coaches girls from the 3rd grade level through high school. The team's highest level players are competing for scholarships to play in college, but many others are there just because they like playing basketball.
I'd like to know the age of the competing teams. These were sixth year level students, the first game was played by, as I can make out from the article, a stand-in team of 6th graders (boys).
I'd want to know if they only met other 6th grade teams after that, or what the age composition of both teams were, because I feel like that could potentially be a factor.
"Subsequently, their first game was filled in by a boys 6th grade Next Level team ... It wasn't until late January/early February that several teams from the 6th grade division started traveling down to Kentucky to play their scheduled games, that it became apparent that the Next Level team was, in fact, a girls team."