Looking Beyond the Score

Reasons Vary for Lopsided Result of Many Girls' Games

In the time it took for Brittney Salter's three-pointer to drop through the net to the hardwood floor, there was a discernable, if brief, silence.

Then, an eruption.

The girls' basketball players for Maya Angelou Public Charter School started to backpedal on defense, some with smiles, some with arms momentarily raised or outstretched in triumph. The boys' basketball players seated behind the girls' bench shouted and high-fived. On the sideline, Coach Kate Schrepfer jumped once, then shrieked to no one in particular, "Oh my God! We're winning!"

This was not in the game's final seconds or in some championship contest. It was in the first quarter on a Tuesday night in early February and Salter's three-pointer gave the Rebels -- who one week earlier had lost 101-1 -- their first lead of the season.

Only 34 seconds later, the lead was gone, and Maya Angelou eventually lost to Marriott Charter, 31-18. But when Salter, who had scored the Rebels' lone point the week before, connected on her NBA-range three-pointer, it had all the drama of a buzzer-beater.

Such moments give teams like Maya Angelou the incentive to keep playing, even though they experience some extremely humbling defeats. And to be sure, Maya Angelou is not alone when it comes to being humbled.

On nearly every night that girls' basketball is played in the Washington area, there are a few scores of eye-catching proportions. There have been 88 games reported to The Washington Post this season in which one girls' team scored 20 points or fewer and lost by 40 or more.

On Jan. 31, four of the 19 scores reported were 50-8, 76-11, 88-12 and 61-15.

By contrast, only seven boys' games all season have met the above criteria.

This season isn't an anomaly, either. During the 2006-07 season, 86 girls' games finished with the losing team scoring 20 points or fewer and trailing by 40 or more, whereas only 18 boys' games ended that way.

Coaches cite many reasons for the talent disparity among some teams, including: fewer feeder programs for girls than boys on the youth level; more boys dedicated to playing year-round, both in organized leagues and on playgrounds; many of the most athletic girls play more than one sport on the high school level, leaving them less time for basketball; and girls who can play tend to gravitate toward already established teams, often the area's private schools or the best public school teams in D.C., where transfer rules allow students more freedom of choice.

The bottom line, coaches say, is that even as participation has exploded in the past 20 years, the talent pool of girls is smaller than boys and not big enough to sustain all of the high school teams in the area. At least one school, M.M. Washington, did not have enough players to field a team this season after experiencing numerous blowouts last season.