By Erin Edwards
Special To The Reporter

It had been decades since the St. Ann's girls basketball team last won a Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) championship. In fact, it had been so long that no one can remember the date. "Everyone was saying it was sometime in the 50s," said Lisa Del Tufo, the team's head coach.

Well, the long wait is over; St. Ann's can now add another CYO title to its list of accomplishments. The girls fought a close battle with St. Jude's of Norfolk last Saturday at Milton High School and prevailed, 29-27, as Katie King, with 14 points, tallied nearly 50 percent of the team's total.

St. Ann's finished with a near-perfect season record, posting an 8-1 regular-season mark (the loss was to Sacred Heart of North Quincy early in the season) and sweeping through the tournament's three games.

"This game was the closest game we've ever played, but I had faith in them the whole time," says Del Tufo.

St. Ann's had no trouble winning its two previous tournament games with double-digit margins; St. William's of Tewksbury fell, 41-30, and St. Mary's of Franklin went down by 35-23.

The 20-year-old Del Tufo, 20, who once played for St. Ann's, has been coaching the Intermediate (9th grade and under) girls team for three years (she coached this year's team when they were 7th and 8th graders). "To get them in the CYO was my main goal, so I stayed with them," she says of her winning team.

Del Tufo has also coached the same girls on the Red Sox, their softball incarnation. Last year, they won the Mayor's Cup for Softball in RBI League competition.

But the basketball season isn't over yet. St. Ann's will meet Sacred Heart of North Quincy, the only team to beat them this year, in another tournament game this Saturday at 6 p.m. at Putnam High School in Springfield.