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“I’m on point. We’re running three,” Shay told Layne.
Layne nodded and said, “I’m on Number Six.”
“Okay. I’ve got Twelve,” she replied.
Hilton inbounded, and with thirty seconds exactly on the clock, Shay brought the ball up the court, planning to use up the entire shot clock if she could. She called the play, and her teammates took their positions. They hadn’t run this play in a while, but they’d practiced it yesterday. It was meant to be a long play to stall for time and set up the last shot. Shay passed inside to Hilton, who made a move to shoot, taking up a few seconds before she passed it out to Ledger, who quickly tossed it to Layne. Layne pushed inside before she passed it back to Shay. Then, Layne took off down the baseline. Hilton set the pick, catching Layne’s defender for the second Layne needed to step behind the three-point line. When Shay passed the ball to her hard, Layne knew what to do. She did a pump fake and passed the ball back to Shay, who swung it around to Ledger.
There were five seconds left by the time the ball got back to Shay. With their zone coverage, their opponent hadn’t been able to keep up with the fast passes, and Shay was open but had a defender heading right toward her. With four seconds left now, she raised her arms to shoot and took the shot beyond the three-point arc. She felt a hand hit her arm, heard the whistle that she’d been fouled, but also watched the shot go in.
She raised her arms in the air, and the rush of the crowd finally hit her ears. The ref pointed to the clock, though. There were still two seconds left on it, so they couldn’t celebrate just yet. Shay had been fouled, which meant they still had the ball. The other team looked dejected, and Shay knew it was over.
She turned to her coach and mouthed, “Miss?”
Coach nodded and held up two thumbs in Shay’s direction.
“Nice shot,” Layne said and patted her on the back.
“Thanks,” Shay replied.
Her teammates all congratulated her just before she took her spot at the line. If she made it, no time would go off the clock, and the other team would get possession. While it was highly unlikely that they’d score a three-pointer, get fouled in the process, and make a free throw to win the game, Shay didn’t want to take that chance. A miss would mean the clock would start, and there wouldn’t be enough time for them to get a shot off. So, when Shay got the ball, she dribbled four times and threw the ball hard at the basket more than she actually shot it. It bounced off the backboard and the rim and landed in the hands of the other team’s guard, but it was too late. The buzzer sounded. The game was over. They’d done it.
CHAPTER 6
After the win, Coach told them they didn’t have to worry about a curfew as long as they were smart and didn’t do anything that would jeopardize their fitness or would possibly get them injured since they’d just earned an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.
Layne couldn’t believe it. When she’d first joined Dunbar as a walk-on, it had been because she’d only been accepted to a few colleges. One of them had been in Texas and was even smaller than Dunbar. They hadn’t offered her a basketball scholarship, either, so she didn’t see the reason to move that far away from home. The other school that actually had offered her a scholarship had been Division III, and while Layne would have had no problem playing Division III basketball, especially at a school she’d be able to go to for free, they were a religious school. She would have had to take a theology course every semester in addition to her business school classes, and there were other religion-related rules as well.
It wasn’t that she wasn’t willing to put in more work if it meant she got to go to school for free. It was that Layne didn’t believe in God and hadn’t for a long time. She couldn’t see herself sitting in those classes, trying to write papers, answering questions on tests, or otherwise going to church with the team, which also would’ve been required.
So, she’d chosen Dunbar, which hadn’t offered her a scholarship, but Layne thought that if she impressed enough as a walk-on, maybe she’d not only make the team but, eventually, she’d be awarded a scholarship. She’d made the team, which had already been a happy surprise to her, and when Dunbar had lost three scholarship players when their first coach left, Layne had been offered a mid-season scholarship because of her hard work in practice and in the few games when she played.
Layne wasn’t a bad player. In fact, if playing professionally had been what she wanted, she’d probably be acting a lot like Shay and Martin right now. She’d be trying to impress anyone who would help decide who got drafted, and she’d be begging for more minutes. But Layne, while she loved the sport, wasn’t like everyone else.
“Hey,” a female voice she recognized said.
Layne turned and saw Shay Amos, one of the women she’d just been thinking about, standing behind her and off to her left.
“What are you doing out here?” Shay asked.
“What are you doing out here?” Layne asked her back. “It’s after one in the morning.”
“Which is why I was very surprised to see Layne Stoll sitting by some pond in front of the highway out my hotel room window.” Shay moved to sit down next to her and offered her a beer.
“No, thanks,” Layne replied.
“Have I ever seen you drink?” Shay asked.
“No, because I don’t.”
“Don’t drink in season?”
“No, I don’t drink at all,” Layne replied.
“Oh,” Shay uttered, sounding confused. “I’m not sure if I should ask why. I know that might be a personal decision, so I don’t want to pry.”
“I never really have. Just not my thing,” she replied, giving her typical response.
“Okay. Well, that’s cool.” Shay took the beer she’d held out and set it in the grass on her other side. “So, can I ask what you’re doing out here? I only saw you because I was looking out the window, and that highway light kind of hits you where you’re sitting.”
