AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She wanted to share these results with someone. Plummer was probably not a good choice because it neither involved the Toompas case nor was urgent enough to interrupt his family Saturday. Bruce Penderman was a possibility, even if she had to bring him completely up to speed on Balfour. Yet she didn’t want to do this, not least because Bruce would probe how she got the information. Plummer would have done the same, but he wouldn’t have pushed the way Bruce would.
That left Simpson. She needed to let him know his source had come through. She rang his phone; no answer. She left a message for him to call her or she’d try again later.
Her earlier dour mood had shifted to excitement, though the sunny morning showed signs of changing. As was typical here, a sunny morning often resulted from another weather system pushing against the coast and blowing away fog and overcast skies. Once the front approached, so did clouds. She had lived in Tillamook long enough to know rain was coming. Though it wasn’t raining yet, the wind picked up, and darkness to the west foretold of the approaching storm. Yet her mood was electric. Then the phone rang.
She grabbed the phone and pressed receive.
“Hi, Greta, it’s Emily.”
“Uh . . . hi, Emily.”
Her disappointment was evident.
“Sorry, Greta, am I interrupting something?”
“No . . . no, you just caught me thinking about something.”
“Well, think about this. Are you coming to the game this evening?”
Game?
She had forgotten, again, her promise to the girls and Emily that she would attend. The phone hid her face, red with embarrassment. “I didn’t forget. I’ll be there.”
“Could you possibly come a little early? Maybe an hour or so? I got a call from the Willamina High School coach. They got creamed by Salem’s Madison High School last night, and she’s still angry. She said the Madison girls trash-talked her girls so much, they lost their composure, along with being intimidated by the Madison girls’ rough play. She warned us what to expect. She’s really burned and emailed me some clips of the game and what she thought was dirty play. A parent took movies of the game and gave them to the Willamina coach. I guess the coach thought warning us might help. Maybe you could look at the clips and make suggestions on how our girls can hold their own.”
Greta felt wired and needed something to do. This was perfect. Well, not perfect, because going out and actually playing herself would have fit that description. But this would do.
“Glad to help, Emily. Forward the clips to me. Game’s at five, right?”
“Right. Five. Before the boys’ game at seven.”
Another of Greta’s gripes. When the girls’ and boys’ teams played the same night, the boys always got the prime-time slot, the argument being that more parents and local fans would come out for the boys than for the girls. She recognized the rationale but chaffed because it always signaled to the girls that they were secondary.
“I’ll look over the clips. If I have any suggestions, maybe we could meet with the team about three to go over a game plan.”
“Sounds great, Greta! I’ll email them to you right away. Give me a call when you’ve looked at the clips.”
Three minutes later, an email from Emily arrived. There were three attachments, all movie clips of about a minute each. The Willamina coach had selected what she thought were egregious incidents. Greta agreed. The first clip was short and started innocuously enough. A missed shot by a Willamina girl was rebounded by Madison, and the two teams ran down the court. Greta played it several times before she saw why it had been selected by the Willamina coach. As the players and the referees ran down the court, a Willamina player had stumbled during the rebound and was slower following the other players. A Madison player had waited for her and then elbowed the shorter Willamina girl in the side of the head. Almost everyone’s attention was on the ball, and the referees missed it.
The second clip was longer and showed a Madison player getting up in the face of a Willamina girl. The sounds of the fans drowned out what the Madison player was saying, but from her body language, it was obvious that some serious trash talk was going on. Play stopped for a timeout, and the person operating the camera zoomed in on the Willamina girl. Greta thought the girl appeared upset, almost crying.
The third clip was straight-out rough play. A Madison player aggressively fought for position, and the Willamina player got shoved aside, allowing an easy basket. This one was iffy. Greta thought the Madison player, while definitely pushing the limits of the rules, was arguably within her rights. It was the Willamina player who hadn’t protected her position.
Greta saved the clips on her laptop. Too bad she wasn’t playing today herself. She was in a good mood for the Madison players, although she wasn’t sure how her girls would deal with the situation.
She called Emily. “The game is at five. Be sure you get the girls together at three. I think we can help them handle the Madison team, but we’ll need some practice time.”
“Practice before a game? Won’t that wear the girls out too much?”
“I don’t think tiredness will be a deciding factor in this game, as much as mental attitude.”
“Okay,” said a dubious Emily Sievers. “I’ll call around and see if I can round them up to be there at three.”
At three o’clock, Greta walked onto the Cloverdale basketball court dressed to play, as were ten of the eleven available girls. Emily hadn’t been able to contact the eleventh, a second string forward.
Greta called them to attention. “Thanks for coming. This is irregular, to have a practice right before a game. However, Coach Emily passed on to me some video clips of last night’s game between Willamina and Madison from Salem. Madison won 72–42. Madison is many times Cloverdale’s size, but don’t ever think the size of a school necessarily means a sports team is automatically better. It still comes down to the players.
“First, one thing I noticed in the game clips is that Madison is a better team than Willamina, but not by that much. Everything being equal, I would have expected Madison to win a close game. Instead, Willamina got slaughtered. Why? Because they lost their composure. The Madison players trash-talked and pushed them around so much, they were easy pickings. Believe me, Madison probably doesn’t think you ladies have any chance against them. If you’re going to stay in the game, there’re two things you have to do. One is not to lose your composure and concentration, no matter what they do. If you do, they’ve already beaten you.”
