An 'elite' Alabama girls basketball team wasn't given a trophy after beating boys teams at a tournament. But the town says the coach knew they wouldn't be awarded for winning.

• A fifth-grade girls basketball team in Alabama was denied a trophy after they beat teams of boys.
• People online accused the town of sexism, but the city says it's a misunderstanding.

An Alabama girls basketball team wasn't given a championship trophy after beating boys teams in a recreation league tournament, sparking outrage online.

But the town says the coach knew they wouldn't be awarded for winning because they were, quite literally, out of the boys teams' league.

The uproar began after a mother of one of the girls on the Hoover, Alabama, team posted on Facebook that her daughter and teammates were disqualified even though they won the tournament.

"Excuse me? What?" Jayme Mashayekh wrote. "What did they do to get disqualified? Did they not pay their dues? Did they not play up a level in competition? Oh, it's because they're GIRLS?!?!"

Mashayekh alleged that the girls team was told halfway through their season that they'd need to pay to play against teams in the recreation league if they wanted to keep using the city's gyms.

Mashayekh, whose post received nearly 400 comments from people expressing mostly similar outrage, did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

But Hoover, Alabama, City Administrator Allan Rice told Insider that online blowback over the trophy may have just been a misunderstanding.

"This is one parent who got on Facebook and, obviously, did not understand the process," Rice told Insider. "So there must have been a breakdown between the coach and the parents."

The City of Hoover told Insider that the championship girls played on an "elite" team, where the players are specially selected based on their high-skill level, and thus they're not part of the "regular" league.

The boys teams they played against are part of the "regular" league, where the most skilled players are spread out across teams and not loaded all onto one team, the statement said.

Rice said that "elite" teams generally play teams from across the metro area, but can join recreational league tournaments to "get additional games and for practice."

Rice said the girls team was not forced to play against the boys, and that the coaches chose to, knowing they wouldn't be given the trophy if they won.

"These elite teams come in and they request to participate in the tournament and they're told you can participate, but you're not part of our league, so you can't be named the champion for your grade level," Rice told Insider. "They agreed to that. The coaches knew that."

But, he added, there must have been a breakdown in communication where some of the parents, such as Mashayekh, may not have known that.

"This has been in place for probably 15 years and it's been applied regardless of gender," Rice said. "There also was a boys team that was affected the same exact way this year, with one of our city council member's sons on the team."

Rice said the town will likely now ban elite teams from competing against the regular teams.

In a statement shared with Insider, the City of Hoover said that the boys and girls elite teams that won the championships against the regular teams have been invited to the city council meeting on Monday to be recognized for their victories.