In September, 2004, at the first meeting of the Interscholastic sports Council (ISC),HOOPs, a private NGO that works with Chuuk's youth and offers sport programs for girls and young women, made a presentation to the general membership urging them to do more to promote women's basketball.

It was pointed out that neighbor Palua has hundreds of elementary school girls playing basketball. Yap, with approximately one-fifth the population of Chuuk has five girls teams playing regularly, whereas Chuuk with a population of more than 50,000 did not have one active girls' basketball team ready to compete.

This sad reality has been the case for many years, and the cause of hardships for Chuukese girls that want to participat in this healthy and enjoyable sport. Islands in Chuuk have lots of basketball games and leagues, but none for the girls.

The ISC decide to take steips to encourage girls basketball teams, and the success was immediate with seven schools fiedling girls'teams. Many girls participated in their first ever basketball game, some playing in long skirts and rubber flip-flop sandals. True, the level of play was low, poor dribbling, not shooting very well, lots of turnovers, their game having much room for improvement...

But as people watched, something interesting start to happen. It became evident to the spectators that the girls, in spite of theirlimited basketbal skills, most with absolutely no prior experience in the sport, entered the court and competed with intensity... The enthusiasm and love of the game shone through.

This competitiveness was never more evident than in the girls' championship game between Saramen Chuuk Academy (SCA)and Xavier High School (XHS). No long skirts here, the players from both teams came in school uniforms with a desire and determination to claim the championship for their school.

Encouraged by a small but enthusiastic crowd of students, faculty and parents, SCA's Ginger Katzuda and XHS's Adalysa Danis met at center court for the tip off.

The game started slowly with both teams cautious and not shooting well.

At the end of two quarters Xavier High School has scored 16 points to SCA's 13. The third quarter saw both teams improve their shooting, XHS hit a big 3-pointer, answered by Deleren Danis's fast breaks for SCA.

But it was strong rebounding and passing by mercedes Victus that helped CSA take a lead it never relinguished, eventually claiming a 43 to 28 victory.
After the game, both teams came together and shook hands. There were no losers here, just two girls teams showing others that they came to play and they play hard.
Saramen Chuuk Academy Principal Julia Williams said proudly, "This is the first time in the history of our school that we have won a basketball championship. We are very proud of our girls'team.

And so, the journey on "the road less traveled"has begun, "and that has made all the difference.