Getting cut, or even just being assigned to the B team, can be hard. But it doesn't have to mean the end of a playing career.

Four members of this season's varsity girls' basketball team at New Trier High School in Winnetka, Ill., began their high school careers as members of the freshman B team, which is usually considered to be less talented than the freshman A team. And another player on the Trevians Varsity roster this season didn't make either of the two freshman teams.

But these players didn't give up. After improving their games through hard work and dedication these five players eventually made Varsity, and this year helped their team to a 30-8 record and a third-place finish at the Illinois State High School Association Class AA (large school) playoffs.

Their coach, Teri Rodgers, told the Chicago Tribune that's she never before had so many Varsity players who weren't on the freshman A team. Rodgers also said that their experiences definitely helped the team.

"You'll have some adversity in any season and these are the types of kids who won't give up," she told the paper. "Those are the right qualities to build a team around."

Seniors Jessie Forman and Felice Porrata worked their way into starting roles this season while juniors Megan Slattery, Ndidi Onyejiaka, and Alexis Printen contribute off the bench and in practice. These five players were among the best players on their eighth-grade teams, and as a result, were surprised when they didn't make the freshman A team.

Printen was especially disappointed to not make either team, telling the Tribune that basketball was almost her whole life and that she cried for hours. But they took the disappointment in stride and were among the 15 players who made the school's only sophomore team.

"That took an edge off my questioning of my playing," said Forman, who also played on the school's volleyball team. "I was pretty confident, but I did feel I had to prove myself my sophomore year."

Porrata was one of the team's captains this season while Forman averaged nearly nine points a game and was the team's leading scorer eight times. Slattery, meanwhile, averaged about five points per game and led the team in rebounding three times.

But numbers alone can't measure the contributions these players made to the team. "The kid who scores 25 points is not the only leader you can have on a team," Rodgers told the paper. "Someone like Alexis who doesn't give up ... that's great leadership for other people to look at, too."