After a Triumphant Season, Lady Lions Take Loss in Overtime

Four years ago, the KIPP King Collegiate Lady Lions were a ragtag crew of basketball dreamers, founding members of a five team league so new it hadn't even earned a place in the California Interscholastic Federation's North Coast Section conference.

By Wednesday, they were the feared favorites in the Bay Area Charter School Athletic League's playoff competition, famed for trouncing charters across the East Bay.

Their loss—a stunning 61-59 overtime upset that knocked them out of the finals—was hard. But harder still will be saying goodbye to the team and the league they nurtured from its infancy. 

"It's going to be brutally hard to say goodbye to this group of students that’s graduating," said coach Curt Goehring. 

Drawn largely from local immigrant homes, they were petite and scholastic (the entire team made honor roll last semester)—hardly the image of basketball stars.

 But grit and determination set them apart. 

"We don’t have a gym, which means we practice when other teams don’t want to," Goehring said. "We practice at 7 a.m. on Saturday mornings because we can get a gym then."

The girls' practice gear bears the slogan "Fear Small", a tongue-in-cheek reference to the fact the tallest player is just 5'6"— roughly the height of the shortest students on many of the teams they play. 

But their motto has a second meaning. It means play without fear.  

"They're inspiring to work with," Goehring said.