This is Part 1 of a three-part series on the state of Boston City League girls basketball. Stay tuned for the next installments Thursday and Friday.
It's Feb. 20, the heart of winter vacation, and O'Bryant has just claimed the Boston City League girls basketball championship.
Across the court, the Snowden Cougars watched, holding back tears.
Snowden International, a tiny high school of about 420 students located in downtown Boston, went 19-0 to reach the city championship game. The Cougars barely stayed afloat with a roster of six girls – an improvement from the last two seasons of five-girl teams.
Cougars coach Phibe Pham patiently led her squad through the loss. Pham is a proud 2007 Snowden graduate who went on to play in college at Pine Manor. She's coached the Cougars for nine seasons, and Pham relishes seeing the year-over-year progress of her girls. She smiles at the history this team made by reaching the City League championship game.
But she also faces an honest truth. The girls basketball teams in the Boston City League — which comprises all but one of the public high schools in the city of Boston — cannot compete at a state-wide level anymore, a combination of too few players to sustain most programs and a general lack of varsity-caliber talent. In the four years of the new MIAA statewide tournament, no Boston City League girls team has advanced past the Round of 32.
