Lacrosse

3- Images and Scrimmages

Josh

Once practice has come to an end, both teams join back up in the center of the field to stretch out before leaving the school.

Spreading out around the center circle where draws are taken for the girls, I plop myself down next to Kendall. Coach Scott and Coach Amanda stand in the middle of the crowd, telling us what stretch to do and we do them, counting aloud to the number thirty for each.

"We have an announcement to make so listen up!" Scott demands. Once the group is silent enough that a pin dropped a mile away could be heard, he begins talking again. "We've already made it to the state championships, as you all know. We finished the season undefeated and then won our district finals, so now we're off to states. And after that comes Nationals. But first, we have to beat Pittsburgh Hills in states."

"So," Amanda begins, "we have arranged a little scrimmage in preparation for the big game. It's this Saturday at noon for the girls, 3 o'clock for the boys. And we will be playing Pittsburgh Hills."

A tiny squeak comes from Kendall's throat beside me and I fight the urge to make the same noise.

A scrimmage.

Against Pittsburgh Hills.

Are they crazy?

It's bad enough having to play those psychos once a year, and now we're going to choose to play them twice? Do they want more property to be vandalized? More fights to break out? More people to get injured?

"You're all probably asking yourselves why we would willingly set this up, so here's your answer. If we beat them, we're a shoo-win for the state championship. They don't know how to come back from a loss, so they'll give up before the real game even starts. If they beat us, they'll get cocky. They won't practice as hard or maybe at all. We, on the other hand, will practice our asses off. We know how to come back from behind and we've done it before. No matter the outcome of the scrimmage, it'll help us win the title. That's all that matters at this point," Scott explains.

"Now go home and get some sleep. We have two more practices until the scrimmage, tomorrow and Friday. You'll need all the rest you can get because it's boot camp time," Amanda says.

She rallies all of us into a huddle in the center of the circle and we put our sticks I'm the air. All eight captains- one from each grade level from each team- starts the chant.

"Panthers on three, Panthers on three! One... Two... Three... Panthers!" we all scream, making it as loud as we can.

Everyone heads over to the two benches on the side of the field and begins to gather their belongings, tossing our empty bottles of Gatorade in the recycling bins on the way to the parking lot.

"How you feeling down there?" Kendall asks, giggling.

"It would feel better if you kissed it," I reply, giving her a puppy dog face that would melt anyone's heart. She punches my chest sassily but smiles anyways, unable to stay angry.

"How about I kiss you here instead?" she offers, planting a long kiss on my lips. Her lips linger on mine for a beautifully long moment, until she pulls away suddenly.

"Did you hear that?" she questions, twisting her head in every direction to find the source of whatever it is that she heard.

"I didn't hear anything..." I reply, looking around too,

"It sounded like someone was taking a picture of us," Kendall murmurs.

"I think you're just used to hearing that noise while kissing me since you're always trying to take selfies of it," I joke.

"I guess so," she giggles, sliding into the passenger seat of my car.

I look around one last time, trying to see anything that could have remotely sounded like the snapping of a camera's shutters, but once again find nothing.

I shrug my shoulders, convinced that she was just hearing things, and get into the driver's seat of the car. I put the keys into the ignition, turn on the radio, and drive away from the school's lacrosse fields.