Chapter 89 National Championship 1 (1/2)

As a player of a team that arrived at the national championship, it was normal that Joe knew to convert the Free Throws, but perhaps by the nervousness of a difficult game, he ended up missing the 2 attempts and the fault of Mark ended up being positive.

Mark himself was the one who got the rebound from the second failed attempt and passed the ball to Jake to start another attack, as the Bats team was all in the attacking block and were a little shaken by having lost an attack, Jake just got the ball and ran at maximum speed.

It should be remembered that because Jake was playing as a team and as a point guard, he never ran at his top speed because of his statistics trained in those nearly 3 years were bigger than all his colleagues at Middle School.

So when Jake accelerated, all opponents were left behind and in a few seconds, he was alone doing a layup to score the 2 points.

With these 2 points scored by Jake the Elite team already had a 4-point lead over the Bats in less than 1 minute after the game started, thinking that the Bats team's mood slowed, even more, when they started attacking again.

The PG of the Bats team despite not being very skilled still managed to control the mood of his team a little, so in their attack, he passed the ball to Paul who seemed to want to show his skills.

So Paul who received the ball and tried to pass by Carter when he saw that he would not get dribble he just forced a mid-range shot to make the 2 points.

This was the strategy that coach Mike organized for the game, the Elite team should appear to be slow in defense and when the opponent was distracted they would steal the ball.

Of course coach Mike can only risk using this strategy because he relied on his players' defensive skills; if a weak team did that, it would only make it easier for the opponent to attack.

Then Jake organized the attack and passed the ball to Mark who soon turned and did a layup to score 2 more points and further decrease Joe's will that was marking him.

So the game continued like this and when the first period ended the Elite team was ahead by 6 points, almost at the end of the first period Jake stole the ball of the opponent's PG and makes 2 more points ahead.

In the second period of the game although the Bats tried to keep calm the 6-point advantage was still stressful for the players, and Jake still began to slow the game and spend the possession of the ball as if they wanted to keep the advantage like that.

On the other side, the Bats' team PG was falling on Jake's pace and was trying to get off the ball quickly in the attack, he realized that any hesitation he gave Jake would take to steal the ball.

So he had to make each move with the care that made him even more stressed, Jake also became more relaxed the more the game heated up, he always kept his mind cold and looked for the best move every time in his attacks.

And for all who watched the game this difference in behavior was apparent, so this time in this national championship everyone could see Jake's playing style and it would not be like last year where he was eliminated before being seen.

When the second period and the first half of the game had ended the difference was 10 points, although the Bats team played better the advantage still existed, and if it continued so the game would end.

In addition to make worse the team of Bats were very tired by the stress of the game, after all, as the team was stronger all expected that after leaving the state championship winners could at least advance until the third round of the national championship.

But now they were losing in the first game to a team that was playing for the first time the national championship, this only served to increase their stress when they saw that they were 10 points behind on the scoreboard.

The game continued and everyone cheered to try to get the result, but Jake's team was relentless and when the game ended the Elite team had won by 16 points.

Everyone was very happy with the victory more as this was only the first game of a total of 6 was still too early for interviews, of course, Eric was there as in all games to follow the full trajectory to the national championship trophy.