Scramble
Copyright© 2025 by Lumpy
Chapter 17
Tuesday, I rushed from practice with Coach Holloway to the gym, not even bothering to change anything except my shoes.
I was just glad the game was being played here instead of away and it wasn’t Monday or Wednesday, or seven-on-seven would have pushed back my practice by another hour, and I would have missed most of the game. I’d already missed the last regular season game and the playoffs were single elimination, so there was a chance if I missed this game that there wouldn’t be a chance to see any more.
Instead, I made it in with like five minutes to spare before tip-off. The bleachers were already full, mostly with students from Wheaton who hadn’t shown up during the regular season, when the bleachers were half empty, but who’d come out now.
To be fair, there were also a fair number of Cooper fans who’d made the trip out from Fort Worth to see their team play. Texas may be a football state, but we still cared about our other high school sports.
The Wheaton side was already loud. A group of seniors had painted their faces black and gold, and someone’s mom was organizing a chant that mostly involved spelling out M-U-S-T-A-N-G-S repeatedly. Cooper High’s fans filled the opposite bleachers in their blue and scarlet, looking confident. From what I’d heard, their girls team had only lost three games all season.
Down on the court, Coach Weyland stood at center court with her starting five. Li sat at the far end of the bench, watching Cooper’s players run layup lines.
“That your girlfriend?” someone asked behind me.
I turned to find Eduardo climbing over the bleacher bench, nearly stepping on someone’s nachos.
“Shut up.”
He laughed as he settled in next to me. “They look good.”
“Yeah,” I said.
I was actually a little nervous about it. They looked fast and bigger than us. Not just taller, but their center was massive. She could probably give Tyrell a run for his money.
Well, okay. Not Tyrell, but she was a big girl for sure. It would be hard to muscle her out of the paint.
The buzzer sounded for warm-ups to end. Both teams huddled at their benches while the starters stripped off their shooting shirts. Li pulled off her warm-up jacket but stayed seated as the starting five took the court.
The referee tossed the ball up for the opening tip. Cooper’s center easily won it, tapping it to their point guard, who immediately pushed the pace. At least their center was slow. If she was also fast, she would have been unstoppable.
The rest of their team, though ... they had wheels. Wheaton looked a step slow. Taylor hedged too far on a screen, letting Cooper’s shooting guard curl to the basket for an easy layup.
“Come on, Taylor! Stay home!” Coach Weyland yelled.
We’d gotten seats close enough to the bench we could hear what was going on.
Taylor jogged back on defense, but her body language screamed frustration. She crowded her assignment on the next possession, hand-checking just enough to draw a whistle.
“That’s nothing!” Taylor threw her hands up.
The referee ignored her protest and signaled the foul. Cooper’s point guard walked the ball upcourt, calling out a play. They ran a double screen for their shooting guard, who caught the ball on the right wing. Taylor fought through the picks but arrived late. The Cooper player pump-faked, and Taylor left her feet.
The whistle came immediately. Shooting foul.
“Taylor, what are you doing?” Coach Weyland called.
Taylor trudged to her spot, hands on her hips. Cooper’s player sank both free throws. 6-0.
Wheaton finally got on the board when Maria drove baseline for a reverse layup, but Cooper answered right back with a three-pointer from the corner. Their offense looked like they were running a clinic and making us look bad.
Part of the problem was that Wheaton’s offense consisted mostly of Maria trying to create something out of nothing while everyone else stood around. Taylor posted up twice but forced bad shots over double teams. The guards seemed afraid to shoot, passing up open looks to dump the ball inside where Cooper’s size advantage was most obvious.
The scoreboard showed Cooper up 15-7 with four minutes left in the first quarter. Taylor had picked up her second foul trying to strip the ball from Cooper’s center and was pressing even harder on defense to compensate. Every possession, she gambled for steals, reaching when she should have stayed home, leaving her feet on pump fakes.
Okay, she wasn’t quite that bad. Mostly, I was biased and wanted Li in playing, but I did think Taylor was hurting the team.
Thinking of her, I glanced at Li. She was standing now, hands on the back of the chair in front of her, while Coach Weyland paced in front of her on the sideline, arms folded across her chest, looking pissed.
With two-forty-seven left in the first quarter, it happened. Cooper ran a baseline out-of-bounds play that freed their shooting guard on the left wing. Taylor rotated late from the helpside, then compounded the mistake by reaching across the shooter’s body as she went up.
The whistle was inevitable. So was Coach Weyland’s reaction.
“Time out!” She slammed her hand on the scorer’s table.
The teams jogged to their benches. Coach Weyland met Taylor at half court, and even from the stands, I could see the senior’s face flush red. They had a brief, intense exchange before Taylor stomped to the bench and threw her towel down.
“Zhu! You’re in!”
Li’s head snapped up. She pulled off her warm-up pants and checked in at the scorer’s table while Coach Weyland gave her about three seconds of instruction that mostly consisted of pointing at Cooper’s center.
“Finally,” Eduardo muttered.
Li jogged onto the court, touching hands with Maria. Cooper inbounded, and their point guard started to probe. She tried to run the same pick-and-roll that had been working all quarter, but Li hedged hard, forcing the ball handler to retreat. The guard swung it to the wing, then to the corner. With the shot clock winding down, Cooper’s forward drove baseline.
Li rotated from the weak side, timing her help perfectly. She went straight up, avoiding contact, and swatted the shot attempt down. The Wheaton crowd erupted.
“Let’s go!” I yelled, standing up.
Maria grabbed the loose ball and pushed up court. Li sprinted to fill the lane. Maria drove right, drawing two defenders, then whipped a pass to Li on the left block. Instead of forcing a shot, Li pump-faked, let her defender fly by, and laid it in off the glass.
Cooper 15, Wheaton 9.
“That’s what we need!” someone’s dad yelled behind us.
Cooper called timeout to stem the momentum. To my shock, Coach Weyland was actually drawing up a play on her clipboard instead of just yelling about effort.
The game resumed with Cooper trying to attack Li immediately. Their center backed Li down in the post, using her size advantage. Li held her ground, keeping her hands straight up. The center tried a jump hook that Li contested without fouling. The shot clanged off the back rim.
Li grabbed the rebound with both hands, flipped the outlet to Maria, and sprinted up court. Maria found her on the wing, where Li drove baseline. Cooper’s defense collapsed, leaving Wheaton’s shooting guard open in the corner. Li made the pass for an open three.
Cooper fifteen, Wheaton twelve.
With thirty seconds left in the quarter, Li secured another offensive rebound after Maria missed a floater. Instead of forcing a putback, she kicked it out to reset the offense. Wheaton worked the ball around the perimeter until Maria found a cutting teammate for a layup at the buzzer.
At the end of the first quarter, the score was Cooper seventeen, Wheaton sixteen.
As the teams switched sides, I watched Coach Weyland gather her players. Li stood in the huddle, breathing hard but looking eager. The coach pointed at Taylor on the bench, then at Li, clearly indicating a substitution was coming.
“No way,” Eduardo said. “She can’t take her out now.”
But she did. As the second quarter started, Taylor checked back in. Li returned to her seat at the end of the bench without complaint, though I caught her shoulders drop slightly. The two girls who’d been benched all quarter scooted over to make room, and Li settled in to watch.
The momentum shift was immediate. Without Li’s rebounding presence, Cooper’s size advantage returned. Their center scored twice in the paint on consecutive possessions. Taylor, trying too hard to make up for her foul trouble, forced two bad shots that led to fast-break opportunities.
“This is stupid,” Eduardo said. “Anyone can see Li should be out there.”
“Coach Weyland sees what she wants to see.”
“Which is what?”
“That her senior center deserves minutes more than a freshman who makes her look bad.”
The half continued with both teams trading baskets. Wheaton managed to stay close thanks to Maria’s heroics. She had to be approaching twenty points already, but Cooper’s offense kept producing good looks. Every time Wheaton cut it to two or three points, Cooper would answer with a three-pointer or easy basket inside.
Taylor was playing scared now, avoiding contact on defense, settling for jumpers on offense. She wasn’t terrible, just average, which wasn’t good enough against Cooper’s front line. With three minutes left in the half, she picked up her fourth foul trying to defend a post-up without moving her feet.
Coach Weyland’s face turned purple. She called timeout and yanked Taylor immediately. This time, she didn’t even look at Li, instead sending in a junior forward who’d played maybe ten minutes all season, and none of it at the five position.
“Are you kidding me?” Eduardo said, standing up.
I pulled him back in his seat. The last three minutes of the half were painful. Wheaton’s substitute forward looked lost, committing two turnovers and getting beat backdoor for easy baskets. Cooper extended their lead to eight before Maria hit a contested three at the halftime buzzer.
Halftime, it was Cooper thirty-eight, Wheaton thirty-three.
The teams jogged to their locker rooms while the dance team took the court.
“They’re going to lose,” Eduardo said. “Cooper’s too big inside without Li.”
“Maria’s keeping them in it.”
“She can’t do it alone. And what happens when she gets tired?”
I didn’t answer because we both knew. With how Taylor was playing, Cooper would pull away in the second half. Unless Coach Weyland swallowed her pride and played her best lineup regardless of class year, this season was about to end.
As expected, Taylor was back in the starting lineup as they started up the second half. Li resumed her position at the end of the bench, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. If she was frustrated about the lack of playing time, she didn’t show it.
Cooper immediately went to work. They ran their center through a series of screens until she got position on the left block. Taylor fronted the post, but Cooper’s guard lobbed it over the top for an easy deuce.
“Helpside!” Coach Weyland screamed.
Wheaton pushed the ball upcourt. Maria tried to create, but Cooper loaded up on her, forcing the ball out of her hands. Wheaton’s shooting guard took a contested three that barely drew iron. Cooper secured the rebound and outlet for a fast-break layup.
Cooper forty-two, Wheaton thirty-three.
The next five minutes followed the same pattern. Cooper executed their half-court sets with precision while Wheaton relied on Maria to bail them out of broken possessions. Taylor contributed nothing on either end, afraid to foul on defense, forcing shots on offense. The lead grew to eleven, then thirteen.
“Timeout, Wheaton!”
Coach Weyland gathered her team with eight minutes left in the game. Down by twelve and the season on the line, I could see Maria gesturing emphatically, pointing toward the bench. Coach Weyland shook her head, but Maria kept talking. Actually, it looked more like arguing.
The timeout stretched longer than normal. Maria wouldn’t back down, to the point that the ref blew the whistle and called the coach to get her team back on the court. Coach Weyland’s face flushed red, but Maria kept pressing her case. The other players stood awkwardly, watching their captain challenge their coach in front of everyone.
Finally, Coach Weyland threw her hands up and barked something at the bench. Li’s head snapped up. She pulled off her warm-ups and checked in, though Coach Weyland’s body language screamed displeasure. Arms crossed, jaw clenched, she looked like someone forced to eat glass.
Li jogged onto the court. Maria immediately found her in the post, where Li backed down Cooper’s forward and scored with a jump hook. On defense, she hedged hard on a screen, forcing Cooper’s guard into a tough pull-up jumper that clanged off the rim. Li secured the rebound and outletted to Maria.
“Here we go,” Eduardo said.
Maria pushed the pace, finding Li filling the lane for an easy layup. Cooper tried to answer, but Li rotated from the helpside to contest a shot without fouling. The miss led to another fast break, with Li trailing the play and cleaning up Maria’s miss with a putback.
Cooper forty-four, Wheaton thirty-nine.
The crowd sensed the momentum shift. Every stop, every score brought louder cheers. Li was everywhere, setting screens, rebounding, rotating on defense. She didn’t need plays called for her, she just made everyone else better by doing the dirty work.
With four minutes left, Li pulled down another offensive rebound and kicked it out for an open three. Splash. Cooper’s lead was down to two. Their coach called timeout, but the damage was spreading like a wildfire. Wheaton had life, and Cooper’s comfortable lead had evaporated.
After the timeout, Cooper tried to post up their center. Li fronted the post, denying the entry pass. Frustrated, Cooper’s guard forced a contested three that missed everything. Li secured the rebound, passed the outlet to Maria, and filled the lane again. Maria hit her with a perfect lead pass for a layup that tied the game.
The gym exploded. Students stomped on the bleachers and parents screamed themselves hoarse. The only person on the Wheaton side unmoved by what was happening was Coach Weyland, who mostly seemed annoyed.
The final four minutes were a dogfight. Neither team led by more than three points. Every possession mattered. Li played all of it, never asking for a breather, never slowing down. She finished with seven rebounds, three blocks, and eight points in just over seven total minutes of action.
With twelve seconds left and Wheaton up by two, Cooper had the ball. They ran a play for their shooting guard, but Li switched onto her after a screen. The guard tried to drive, but Li moved her feet, staying in front without reaching. Forced into a tough fadeaway, the shot hit the front rim.
To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account
(Why register?)
* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.