Chapter 14: Tournament Week

"Okay, team, listen up," Eddie called out. "Coach has some announcements and some last-minute changes."

We all paused as we were dressing for our first game. Pick came through the door into the locker room, ubiquitous clipboard in his hand, and stood next to Eddie until he was sure he had our undivided attention.

"Now, George Mason University is seeded fifteen in this here tournament, but I don't want you boys to take them any more lightly than you do a conference opponent. Y'all understand me?"

He waited until he heard us all shout out, "Yes, sir!"

"Sean Porter? Ah, there you are, son. You and Stuart Early, I've got some special instructions for the two of you, and the rest of the team needs to be aware of what you two are gonna be doing, okay?"

"Okay, Coach," I said. What did he cook up now? I wondered if Stuart was going to not like this very much.

"First of all, I want to reiterate to all of you that I am really likin' the way everybody is moving on the field. You all are playin' very fluid positions, and yet the entire playing surface is well covered. That's payin' attention to what's happenin' out there, and I want you all to know that I like it a lot. It's going to give some teams fits, I know, when they're up against it."

He looked around, making sure we were all paying attention. "That said, I'm gonna throw another little firecracker into the powder room. Porter and Early, I'm starting you in your customary positions, but I want you two to be particularly aware of each other out there today. I want Porter to follow the path of the ball and switch with Early whenever practical, and everybody else can feed off the results. Stuart, you played a lot of defense before, so I'm well aware you know your way around back there. Just keep an ear out for your keeper's instructions. Understand?"

"Yessir, Pick," replied Stuart.

"Now, that ain't quite all," Pick continued. "Porter and Spencer Goldman, I want you two to play interchangeable midfield. I want you two to be constantly thinkin' about workin' a two-man game out there. Anytime one of you happens upon the ball, the other had better be considerin' how he's gonna be receiving it. You know the drill, boys. Open spaces, give-and-go, blindside passes. You two are to be aware of each other every damn second out there. Got it?"

"Coach? You want us to provide your firepower in the middle?" I wanted to make sure I understood what he was expecting from me. "I'm not much of an offensive-minded player, which you know. What are you trying for here?"

I saw Max Ehrlinger nodding his head in agreement. Even though he was Spencer's backup, I knew he was thinking he didn't want to be the third-position player at midfield if Coach Pick suddenly decided I would make a better midfielder than defender for this particular team. With Dan Ortega pretty much locked in at defense, it was Max who was looking at moving down to third-team status, and we both knew it. He was too smart to open his mouth and say something about it, though.

"Good point, Mr. Porter," said Pick. "Here's what I'm thinking. George Mason's strongest players are in the middle, right down the centerline. Forward, midfielder, stopper, sweeper, keeper. When the Patriots are attacking our net, I want you back there in your customary position, helping to keep them out of our goal. When we're on the offensive, I want you up and ready to muddy up the middle for just the same reason. Your defensive mindset will help us plug up their field of play, and I'm hopin' you will be able to keep the ball on our feet by harryin' their quality guys."

"Okay," I said doubtfully. I glanced over at Spencer. He looked as uneasy as I felt about this experiment.

"Now, before you start raisin' objections, let me say that I'm leavin' it up to you when to call for the switch. I ain't expectin' you to dash on over there as soon as the ball crosses midfield, but if'n you see an offensive or defensive reason for you to be in the middle, that's where I want you to be."

"Why don't you just start me in the middle, then?" I asked.

His eyes crinkled as he smiled. "By gum, there's an idear I might just have to use up sometime," he said, rather too smoothly. "Nope, I want them Patriots to find you where they are expectin' you at the start of the game, Sean. But I want 'em surprised by where you might end up."

"We'll give it a try," I said. It was a lot of field movement for everybody involved in Pick's scheme. I was a little concerned about the weather and its effects. It was unseasonably warm, and with some humidity added in, I knew our legs would start to misbehave if we found ourselves in a dogfight. I turned to Dan Ortega and Max Ehrlinger. "Be ready to hop in, guys. By the end of each half I'd be willing to bet some of us will be ready to grab a breather."

"No problem, Sean. I'll be ready," said Dan. Dan was always ready. I knew it, and he knew I knew it, but I felt more comfortable communicating it, anyway.

"You got it," agreed Max. He was just as anxious to play as Dan was, and maybe more so.

Spencer's intelligent face was bright with anticipation. "I think this is going to work," he said.

Stuart shrugged. "It's a lot of movement just to maintain our coverages," he said.

"That's kind of the point, though, I think," I told him. He thought about it for a moment, and then nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, I guess it is, at that," he said.

I just happened to glance over at the coaches right then, and I saw Pick and Eddie put their heads together. Pick had a catlike grin on his face, and Eddie looked like he had just put one over on somebody. I hoped it wasn't me.

By game time it was sunny and almost hot, and there was a strong wind blowing straight down the field. Keeper punts and long, looping passes were going to be tricky to judge, and corner kicks were going to be especially dangerous in those conditions. There didn't seem to be any gusts that veered off the field. The wind was relentless, blowing from end line to end line.

We went through our warm-up drills and did our laps. Going with the wind I felt like there was a gentle hand pushing me along, but running against the wind was a struggle. Warming up wasn't too bad, but I knew that as the game progressed, I would feel like I was trying to push my way through cotton candy moving in that direction. Another niggling worry was the way the wind seemed to rob me of my breath when I was running into it. Sometimes it seemed like I couldn't fill my lungs, and I was concerned that feeling would hit me sometime during the game. I tried to shake off the feeling, concentrating instead on feeling the wind on my skin as I jogged.

The Patriots won the coin toss and elected to start with the ball. That gave us the choice of which side of the field to defend, and we chose to defend against the wind to start. The captains of the George Mason team looked a little surprised that we were giving up the advantage of the wind, but we had reasoned that it would take them several plays to judge the force of the wind on the ball, effectively reducing its advantage for several minutes. Additionally, we wanted them to feel comfortable playing with the wind at their backs during the first half, so that the struggle against the wind in the second might take an even bigger toll on them. We were gambling that the wind would continue to blow for the next two hours, but we all thought it was an acceptable risk, especially against the bottom seed in our draw.

True to our plan, the Patriots started with the ball, and almost immediately misjudged its effect on the ball's flight path. Their first pass sailed over everybody's head, and Rick came out into the front of the box and gathered it up. He held the ball for a moment until he was satisfied we could move the ball fairly unimpeded, and he rolled it over to me. I passed it up to Spencer, who advanced the ball to the midfield stripe.

Spencer sent the ball up to Jesse on our first offensive set, and almost immediately he found himself double-teamed. Jesse tried moving the ball over, but when he did, we discovered the hole in our grand design of taking advantage of the wind's velocity.

Our plan was only partially thought out, as we quickly discovered. We, too, had trouble adjusting to how the ball was moving in the wind. Our passes were almost always short, and it was pretty easy for our opponents to cut off even a vigorously struck pass. Jesse's first attempt to get rid of the ball resulted in a takeaway, and the Patriots were on the move. Their right midfielder tried a long pass through the air, and the ball sailed way over the head of his intended target. It took three big bounces and ended up out of bounds for a goal kick for us.

Rick played it smart, though, and he passed the ball over to me on the goal kick, rather than taking a chance on having the ball fly back into his face on a long kick. I took the ball and moved up with it, making sure I struck the ball a little harder than I normally would as I ran. The left forward for George Mason came up to challenge me as I controlled the ball, but his angle was bad. I faked a pass over to Brad in the middle, which made the forward stutter and hesitate as he considered changing direction. It was enough of an opening for me to be able to juke him and move past him, toward the midfield stripe.

The Patriots center-mid and the left midfielder both converged on me. I used my right instep to cross the ball over to Spencer, and I took off into the wind. Spencer one-touched the ball back to me on a give-and-go, and then he dropped back into my coverage as I picked up the ball and took it into Patriots territory.

The Patriots players were not expecting me to advance the ball beyond the midfield stripe, apparently, because they covered my forwards and midfielders, leaving me pretty much alone. Once they saw their error, their stopper peeled off his coverage and moved up to intercept. Once more I passed the ball off on a square cross, this time to Bryan, and again I moved upfield. Bryan trapped the ball, took a couple of sliding steps as he rolled the ball with the top of his foot, changing its direction, and then he threaded a pass back to me in the middle. I was now behind the stopper, who had followed the path of the ball from me to Bryan, and I picked up the pass unobstructed. I was only able to take two or three steps with the ball before the Patriots stopper moved on me from behind and their sweeper came up on me from in front. I saw Jesse swinging out into open space, and I powered the ball hard toward him. Even with as much foot as I put on the ball, it was starting to slow to a stop by the time Jesse was able to pick it up, with the defender closing on him fast. Jesse managed to slip the defender just enough so he could put the ball in the air, aiming for the net, but the wind pushed the ball out past the eighteen-meter mark. I desperately leapt up, hoping against hope I could at least graze the ball into a different direction with my head, but I missed, and the ball sailed by me. The Patriots stopper managed to jump up and scissor-kick high enough to get his ankle on the ball, bringing it down to the ground. Before he could do anything with it, though, I ran at him and slide-tackled the ball out from under his feet. We both tumbled to the ground, with the stopper landing hard on my outthrust leg.

The Patriots stopper scrambled up, but my leg wouldn't work very well. All I could do was roll around on the ground, grimacing as I tried to bend my knee to get some feeling back into it. Brad had gathered in the ball on my tackle, and he quickly passed it over to Jesse, who kicked it out of bounds, stopping the game so Eddie could come out and see what was wrong.

By the time Eddie trotted out to where I was, I was wishing I hadn't wanted feeling to rush back into my leg quite so quickly. It hurt a lot, so much so I wasn't sure I could get up without help. Eddie crouched down, his face looking worried.

"Where's it hurt, Sean?" he asked, glancing down toward my knee clutched in both hands.

"Everywhere, man," I groaned. I had some movement in the joint by then, and I flexed the knee. Nothing seemed to be wrong there, and I was beginning to think maybe it was just a delayed reaction to the collision. It seemed like, if I let it, my calf would start to tighten up and bruise, but if I could get up and walk it off, I might be okay.

"Give me a hand up, would you?" I asked. By then, Jesse, Tad, and Bryan were there, too, and four sets of hands reached out to help me to my feet. I tentatively put my foot down and put some weight on my leg. Miraculously, everything held together. The referee came over to ask if I needed assistance off the field, and Eddie shook him off. I had to come out for at least one play, but I could walk on my own. Eddie and I walked slowly off the field. Dan Ortega started taking off his warm-up jacket, but Pick motioned for him to sit back down. I flexed my leg, and even jogged a few steps as we moved toward our bench, and I heard a smattering of applause from the Patriots, a show of sportsmanship.

Pick opted to play a man down rather than take me out of the game until the half ended, so I walked the sidelines, loosening up my abused leg and trying to keep my muscles warm. George Mason took the throw-in to continue with the game. They passed the ball over to our side in deference to the injury stoppage, and play resumed. As soon as he could, Pick put me back me back into the game. By that point Stuart had moved back to the right-side middle to try to shore up our defense in the center of the field while we were playing short. When the referee waved me in, I took my customary spot defending on the right.

We played them tight the rest of the half, and even managed to sneak a goal in on a squibbed corner kick. Frenchy took the corner and tried to keep the ball low and hard, and he ended up hitting the ground with his foot before striking the ball. The ball rolled out, and Spencer moved out to gather it up. He tried to thread the needle on a pass to Bryan close in by the goalpost. Bryan was pushed from behind, but he still managed to heel the ball, perhaps intending on sending it over toward Jesse. Instead, the ball ricocheted off his instep, catching everybody by surprise, and ended up rolling into the net right by the near post. The Patriots keeper made a dive for it, but was a half-second too late. We found ourselves with a 1-0 lead at the half, and the prospect of playing with the wind in the second half.

As we huddled up before the whistle to start the second half, I looked over at Spencer. "You have any problem with me starting in your position?"

He looked at me for a moment, and then turned to Stuart. "You wanna play more D?"

Stuart looked from Goldman to me. "Okay by me," he said.

Spencer nodded, and then turned back to me and nodded again. "Let's do it," he said forcefully.

Pick, on the outside of the huddle, just watched and listened, not saying a thing. His body language spoke of complete agreement, however.