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.
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.
So if I understand it correctly, it’s a boys only competition, not an open competition. And since these girls were so good, they wanted to be able to compete against the top teams, so they pulled of a superb ruse to be able to do just that, in the process upsetting some men who don’t want to compete against girls for reasons, especially if they end up losing. That’s going to make a good sport movie one day.
Many (most?) sports have a top “open” competition that anyone can enter and then several restricted competitions (age, sex, handicaps, …), but even if you qualify for one of the restricted competitions, if you’re good enough, you can still play in the open competition. Except in bible belt country apparently, no girls allowed in the top competition.
It sounds like it’s not a boys only competition. It’s not entirely clear whether this quote is just referring to in general or this specific league, but based on the context the latter appears to be the intended reading.
These are 6th graders. There’s no “top” competition for 6th graders at all, which is why this is a region specific league, and most of the sports are divided into boys and girls divisions at those ages.