Team Captains (Rewrite)

Chapter 20

Today was the day of the championship game and I was even more nervous than I was yesterday.

This game determined whether or not we'd win the championships and most importantly, whether or not we were the best team.

The anticipation kept me from concentrating in my classes. Each class basically went by slowly as I watched the clock slowly tick. It seemed like time had stopped altogether.

"Kennedy," Mr. Baba called out. I finally snapped back to reality and looked at him with a confused look on my face. He sighed. "I know I'm a pretty laid back guy but you have to pay attention."

I nodded sheepishly and tried my best to focus on the subject being taught. To be honest, I had absolutely no idea what we were learning in class today. And I'm pretty sure I failed a quiz that we had in history.

That's what usually happened to me every time before an important game.

When it was finally lunch, I didn't eat anything. I was too nervous and I was afraid it would mess up my ability to play.

"You've got to eat," Daniel told me, handing me a sandwich that he had brought.

I nodded absentmindedly and took his sandwich. "Thanks," I smiled, opening the plastic bag that the sandwich was held in and began eating.

"No problem," he winked. "Wouldn't want the captain to be weak right? You've got to have the most energy out there."

I rolled my eyes at him but chuckled nonetheless at his successful attempts to motivate me.

The rest of the day passed by in a blur. I couldn't focus as usual but now it was finally the end of school.

"Coach said we'll be having a light practice before the game and that she would drive us all," Valentina told me, running around probably to spread the news.

"Thanks," I thanked her, pulling on my backpack and carrying my volleyball duffel bag on my shoulder.

I headed towards the gym to change. I was wearing spandex underneath my skirt today because it was hot. I wore spandex because it made sure that no one saw my butt in case my skirt rode up my leg or a gust of wind blew it up.

I changed into our team jersey to get comfortable in it and put our team t-shirt over it.

The girls in my team began arriving to the gym and after we were all done changing, Coach Melody told us what we're going to be doing.

"You'll do some hitting lines and serving. Then we'll do some passing and the setters will practice their setting. You have long breaks so use them," she instructed. "We'll be packing up and leaving at around 4:30 for our game at Bridgewood's home court at 6:30."

We were playing our game at Bridgewood's home gym because we had never won to them before so they had the home court advantage.

But I was confident in my team that we could win. We had all improved greatly since our last game and I was certain that we could pull it off.

We started practicing. I thought this was a good idea because sometimes we barely got any time before the game to warm up so this extra practice was very useful and I intended to use it wisely. We didn't practice at all yesterday because Coach Melody wanted us to have fun the day before the game so we were making up for that now.

After awhile of practicing I felt pumped up with energy so I decided to take a break before we headed to our game. I took a slug of water and wiped the little sweat on my forehead and face with my towel.

My parents, aunt, uncle, cousin, Chase, and Luke were all going to be in the bleachers watching me and supporting me. I couldn't wait to make them and myself proud by bringing my team to victory today.