187 Between Games (2/2)

Coach took hold of the phone. ”Our next opponent has been decided as well: Durham Preparatory.”

A few groans broke out.

Even Noah joined in. ”Not another private school. They're basically stacked teams all the time. They get to throw school money at players to make them go.”

”Yes, yes. But,” Coach grinned. ”That doesn't always mean that they'll be better. We just beat a prep school that was one division higher. This prep school is also division two, so why can't you beat them as well?”

The tide seemed to change within the team as they got more excited.

”What was the result of their first game?” Zeke asked.

Coach looked at the phone. ”6-5. It was a close one against Live Oak High. Never heard of either of them.” He looked to his assistant coaches but they all shared helpless shrugs. ”Looks like we'll be going in blind. I'll look over their box score and see if I can find anything if use.” He nodded to Zeke. ”I'll let you wrap it up.” He walked away, taking his staff with him.

Zeke stood up and took center stage. He looked around. ”First off, I'm happy with the win. Coach was right when he said we did well. I almost have no complaints.” His eyes fell on me and Noah, making me flinch. ”Of course, I do know of a couple of freshmen which will have to run quite a bit on Monday.”

The team broke out in laughter, Noah frowned, and I sighed in despair. With my bad at bat and my questionable fielding, I wasn't too surprised.

”Moving on.” Zeke commanded everyone's attention. ”I know some of you had to carpool since not all parents could make the drive. My parents are inviting all of us to eat lunch together at a nearby restaurant.” He went on, giving out lunch details before letting us go.

Everyone went in their respective car they showed up in, and we all met up at the food place. Lunch wasn't rushed and everyone seemed relaxed.

I was squished between Julian and Noah. ”What will we do with the free time after lunch?” I asked Noah as we waited for our food to come out.

Noah shrugged. ”Probably just watch whoever is playing on the fields until we can warm up. Sometimes these tournaments have really odd gaps between games, but there's nothing we can do about it. Our game this morning wasn't too long, especially since there wasn't a whole lot of hits for either team.”

That's true. Garret only gave up five hits and two runs. Not bad. Meanwhile our offense had eight hits and four runs. Three of which were mine. I frowned to myself. I had almost a third of the teams hits, yet I was feeling weighed down by my own thoughts of 'not performing well enough'. I even had more hits than Zeke. Granted, he had one less at bat...but still. Why did it feel like I didn't do well at all?