Girls National Interscholastic Basketball Tournament
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Tournament Inaugurated 1924
In the 1920s, the high school game for girls was much more circumscribed than it had been a decade earlier. Only in certain areas of the country were girls playing the game by boys’ rules, and in many places interscholastic competition was banned. The game in most parts of the country was now the three-court line game, involving six players, two each confined to their section of the court. In the New York-New Jersey area, a small number of schools outlying the New York metropolitan area were engaged in competition, and all competition was line basketball. Local schools participating in the game included Hempstead (NY), Lynbrook (NY), and South Side High in Long Island; Gordon (NY), Baldwin (NY), and Port Chester (NY) in Westchester County just north of the city; and East Rutherford (NJ), Westfield (NJ), Emerson (NJ), Dickinson (NJ), and Harrison (NJ) in New Jersey. In Westchester County and New Jersey there was regular league competition.
In 1924 Westfield High inaugurated a national championship for girls’ basketball, offering as the prize, the Westfield Challenge Cup. The Girls National Interscholastic lasted only four short years, but the tourney brought together schools from as far away from each other as Idaho and New York. In 1924, the championship was held at Harrison High, in Roselle Park, New Jersey, not far from Westfield High. Westfield, which claimed the New York state and Eastern championships contested the national championship in a three games series with Guthrie High of Oklahoma, who claimed-be best in the West. Guthrie bested Westfield in the series with two consecutive victories.
The following year, the tournament was held at Hempstead High (NY), on Long Island, and saw such entries as Guthrie (OK), Youngstown Struthers (OH), Burlington (VT), as well as Hempstead High. The winner of the tournament was Hempstead High, which defeated Youngstown Struthers (OH) by a score of 25 to 22.
Tournament Moves to Youngstown, Ohio 1926
In 1926, the tournament was moved to Youngstown, Ohio, home of the Struthers High (OH). The school had tendered an invitation to host the competition, and the Westfield Challenge Cup committee accepted it in December 1926.
The Struthers High invitation, which required a long trip for the defending champion, Hempstead High, was too problematic for the school’s educators. The principal denied the girls permission to participate in the tourney. He asserted, “I can’t see any reason for barnstorming a group of little girls out to Ohio to play basketball under conditions I know nothing about. I wouldn’t send my own daughter on such a trip as that I don’t feel justified in sending any one else’s daughter.” A petition of a thousand names was drawn up and submitted by a group of local businessmen requesting a reconsideration of the issue, but the principal remained adamant in his opposition. From the area, a southern New Jersey school, Mount Holly (NJ), was chosen-participate in a nine-team. Besides the New Jersey school, the other teams were from Pennsylvania, Virginia, South Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia, Kansas, and Ohio. In the title game, Sharon (PA) defeated Struthers (OH) by a score of 22 to 20.
Final Tournament at Wichita, Kansas 1927
In the final year of the tournament, the national championship was held in Wichita, Kansas, and most of the entries were drawn from Western states—Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Wyoming, and Idaho. The Iowa hotbed of girls’ basketball did not send a representative. Eastern entries were from West Virginia and Pennsylvania, the latter represented by Sharon, the 1926 titleholder. Sharon was eliminted by a score of 20 to 12 in the first round by Lawton (OK), the eventually title winner. In the next round, Lawton elimited the remaining eastern representative, Huntington (WV), 33 to 19.
The 1927 tournament was apparently the last for the Girls National Interscholastic. State and league championships continued to be contested in the country, and in the New York-New Jersey area, girls’ basketball continued to thrive, where league champions were regularly crowned.
Tournament Champions
- 1924 Guthrie (OK)
- 1925 Hempstead (NY)
- 1926 Sharon (PA)
- 1927 Lawton (OK)
