Defending Champ

by Mike Lupica

  She lost sight of Chase.

  He was behind her and to her left, almost like a pass rusher in football coming from her blind side as Alex pushed the ball ahead of her at full speed.

  And then, without warning, the ball was gone.

  Chase, having made his move, spun lightning-fast in the other direction, slipping past one defender after another. Johnny Gallotta tried to catch up with him, running on Chase’s left. Then suddenly they crisscrossed, anticipating each other’s moves. Johnny ran at Carly. Chase was over to her right.

  Alex ran as hard as she could to catch up with them and get back into the play.

  Too late, though. She watched as Chase came to a dead stop in front of Maria. Then he started up again. Then another stop. Finally, he cut around her, carrying the ball the way he had for fifty yards, never once looking down to see where the ball was.

  Because he knew.

  It was his ball.

  His game right now.

  Alex finally caught up, and now she and Maria tried to double-team him.

  For a blink, they seemed to have him covered.

  But he spun one more time and was gone.

  Carly came up and tried to cut off his angle to the goal. Only it was here that Chase made one of the coolest moves Alex had ever seen, with only five yards separating him from Carly.

  He elevated the ball with his right foot, straight up into the air, essentially making a pass to himself, before heading it over Carly’s left shoulder and into the net behind her.

  Alex could hear the biggest explosion yet from the crowd, and Alex fought the urge to applaud along with them. She didn’t much care for Chase as a person, but as a player? He was a total star. Her favorite player in the men’s Premier League was Harry Kane of Tottenham. Chase played the game like him.

  And now the score was 1–0.

  All week long Alex had hoped that the people who’d bought tickets to The Game would feel as if they were getting the show they deserved.

  They were sure getting that now.

  “You’re going to wish you’d stuck with football,” Chase said as he ran past her, just loud enough for Alex to hear. “Out here, I’m the quarterback.”

  But somehow, after just one score, it was Alex and her teammates who raised their game, from the time Chase put the ball behind Carly until the end of the half. Coach had been stressing, at every practice, that defense and not offense would win this game, especially taking Chase’s knack for scoring into consideration.

  “The best form of attacking,” she kept telling them, “is defense.”

  That’s what the girls were doing now, playing their zones, not taking reckless chances when they had the ball, and doing their best to play keep-away in their own end when they could. They played cautiously, waiting for a good opening to advance, as if they all knew the worst possible thing would be to fall two goals behind before halftime.

  At a minute left in the half, they took the play to the boys’ end of the field. Alex could see the boys suddenly playing tight again, knowing that as good as their keeper, Danny Stroud, had played so far, one mistake or one good shot could tie The Game. They couldn’t have expected The Game to be this close, not after what they’d done to the girls in their scrimmage.

  But here we are, Alex thought.

  And we’re not going anywhere.

  “I don’t care how good you are,” Jack liked to say. “You don’t want to let the other team hang around.”

  The girls didn’t score before the half. Annie put a terrific shot on Danny with twenty seconds left, but he made an even better save. The game stayed at 1–0, boys.

  At halftime Lindsey said, “We can take these guys.”

  “We will take these guys,” Alex said, surprising herself with how forcefully the words came out.

  Sophie had come walking over from where she and the other cheerleaders were taking their halftime break and heard Roisin say to Alex, “You sound pretty sure about us.”

  Sophie grinned and poked Roisin with an elbow from behind. “You’re about to find out that good teams follow my friend Alex around.”

  Annie came over and put her arm in the air, waving them all in. Soon, they all had their arms in the air, meeting Annie’s.

  “Alex is right,” Annie said with conviction. “We are going to take these guys.”

  As they walked back onto the field, Alex took another glance toward the concessions booth and the nearby table selling shirts and hats. She was happy to see long lines. But Coach was right. There was nothing any of them could do about money now.

  All they could do, for themselves, was win The Game.

  Less than a minute into the second half, Carly kept The Game at 1–0 by making a ridiculous save on Chase after Johnny Gallotta had set him up with a sweet long pass. Chase didn’t have a lot of time but still tried to fake Carly, at least to get her leaning right. But Carly didn’t bite and remained vigilant, waiting for Chase to make his move. When he did, he pounded a shot to her left, but Carly had read him perfectly, maybe closer to the post than she thought, and tipped the ball with her fingertips.

  For one agonizing moment, Alex thought she might have deflected the ball to the inside of the post, and into the goal.

  She hadn’t.

  The ball went wide.

  Still 1–0.

  It was frustrating that they couldn’t break through. But Alex could sense Chase, more than anyone else, getting increasingly irritated. Even with the lead, he wasn’t satisfied, as if annoyed the boys weren’t up by more at this point.

  Alex thought if he kept trying to do too much, he would eventually make a mistake.

  With eight minutes left, that’s exactly what he did.

  Carrying the ball again near midfield, he should have passed it to Johnny, who was wide open. But he didn’t. Selfishly, he held on to the ball, attempting to make another hero play, dazzle everybody again, split Alex and Roisin one more time.

  They didn’t let him.

  Maybe they knew they couldn’t let him, not this late in The Game.

  Alex stripped him cleanly.

  Picked his pocket, as Coach liked to say.

  As she traveled down the field, she heard Chase from behind saying, “What the heck?”

  The play turned around so quickly that the closest defenders were backing up as she approached. She was the attacker now.

  She had Roisin to her left, Lindsey to her right.

  Annie was trailing the play.

  “Right behind you,” Alex heard Annie say.

  The fab front four. Doing their thing.

  They were finally past every defender except one. Charlie Cooper. Their best. Good guy. Really good player.

  He put all of his focus on Alex, who still had the ball.

  Waiting for her to make her move.

  Looking right at Lindsey, Alex pushed the ball to her left, over to Roisin. She’d hoped Charlie would go for her fake, but he didn’t. He went with Roisin. Only now Roisin didn’t hesitate.

  The ball came right back to Alex.

  Danny had moved when Alex had made her initial pass to Roisin, covering any angle Roisin had to his short side. Only now he had to scramble back to the middle of the goal.

  Too late.

  Alex buried her shot behind him, the ball hitting the net so hard Alex thought it might take the whole goal down with it. Hardest shot of her life.

  Now The Game was tied.

  45

  It had long since been decided that they weren’t going to play an overtime or decide The Game on penalty kicks. They were treating it like one of those “friendly” international matches between countries, one in which the outcome never showed up in anybody’s standings. This wasn’t a playoff game. Wasn’t for the championship of any league.

  But it felt like one.

/>   Alex knew there wasn’t a single player out there who wanted this game to end in a tie, even though the people watching would probably consider it a victory for everyone if it did.

  She wanted to beat these guys.

  So did her teammates. Especially now that they’d evened the score.

  With two minutes left, the refs blew their whistles for a time-out.

  Alex ran down in front of Carly and motioned for her teammates to follow her.

  “I know I don’t have to say this, but I’m going to anyway,” she said. “If this is the only game we get to play this season, we are not losing it.”

  It was clear the boys wanted the win just as much as they did. Right after The Game resumed, Chase found himself at the top of the circle in front of Carly, and without hesitating, he kicked the ball so screamingly hard that Alex thought it should have been trailed by a jet stream.

  A shot headed for the upper corner.

  Alex had always thought one of the best things about sports was when you did something you didn’t know you could. Made a play you didn’t know you had in you.

  Carly Jones made one now.

  She flew to her left and was up and off the ground, chasing the ball toward the corner. Then, miraculously, she was soaring through the air, her arm extending out.

  Not only did she get her gloved left hand on the ball.

  She caught it.

  Then she landed back on the ground and rolled the ball to Maria, her closest teammate, who sent it back up the field to Alex.

  Alex gave a quick look at the scoreboard at the other end of the field.

  One minute.

  She was in the boys’ end then, with Lindsey, Roisin, and Annie spreading the field. Fab four, on one more rush, maybe their last for the day.

  Alex still had the ball. She sent it over to Annie. Got it back. Then kicked it over to Roisin.

  Back to Alex.

  Everything happened in quick succession, the boys defending them just trying to keep up.

  The ball was moving faster than they could.

  After the last time-out, the refs had informed both teams that they wouldn’t be putting any extra time on the clock to reflect stoppages in play. And that when the time on the clock expired, when the scoreboard said 0:00, The Game was over.

  Had to be under thirty seconds now, Alex told herself.

  Now or never.

  Roisin and Annie spread out wider, just to give the defenders something to think about, making sure they weren’t offsides inside the key.

  Charlie Cooper was left to cover both Alex and Lindsey.

  Charlie wasn’t messing around. He’d seen the whole game. Seen what Alex could do. He was staying with her, moving up on her now, crowding her, trying to get her off the ball.

  Fat chance.

  Alex put on the brakes. This time, she threw caution to the wind, not worrying who might be behind her, and wound up like she was ready to blast one harder than she had on her goal.

  Right foot all the way.

  Charlie went into a slide, arms behind him, making sure that if he did block the shot before it got to Danny he couldn’t get called for a hand ball.

  But Charlie forgot something.

  Alex was a quarterback.

  Quarterbacks pass.

  She went with her backyard move. As her right leg started forward, she gently pushed the ball with the side of her left to Lindsey.

  Former nemesis. Now trusted teammate.

  Then she watched as Lindsey scored the goal that secured them the victory.

  46

  Two hours later they were back at Lindsey’s house when Coach Cross came in with the final numbers.

  “I couldn’t be prouder of this team,” she said as everyone settled onto Lindsey’s living room floor. “And before we get to the numbers, I want you all to take a moment to recognize yourselves for what you accomplished today. Not just the win. But coming together as a team to make this game happen. You put in the work and pulled off an amazing event, and that deserves a round of applause.”

  The girls clapped and hollered, and all the parents sitting on the couch and standing around the room cheered their heads off. Everyone was still charged up from the win.

  Alex’s heart was pounding. It had been an amazing event, and she’d had the time of her life playing against the guys. But she worried: Would it be enough?

  “I want you all to remember this day for the rest of your lives,” Coach said. “Even though, I’m sorry to tell you, we came up twenty-five hundred dollars short of our goal.”

  The room grew instantly silent, and the mood among the girls and their parents dipped from the highest high to the lowest low.

  “I wish I had better news,” Coach said.

  “Good news for our charities,” Lindsey said, a little deflated but also hopeful.

  From the start, they’d decided if they couldn’t raise the full amount they needed, they would distribute the money to local causes in need: a home for the elderly, a rehab facility, an animal shelter, and a struggling church.

  “You guys did everything you possibly could,” Coach said, “just like you brought it on that field today.”

  Lindsey piped up again. “Should have found somebody to donate a thousand dollars per goal.”

  “We still would have come up short,” Carly pointed out.

  “I refuse to believe this is over,” Annie said. “There’s gotta be another way to raise the rest of the money.”

  “We got every dollar out of our town,” Alex said. “We just didn’t get enough.”

  The girls vowed to celebrate their victory anyhow, with cake and ice cream and cookies and an impressive fruit platter assembled by Mrs. Stiles. Everything was set up buffet style on their console in the dining room.

  When they were all seated with their plates in their laps, and the parents were sipping their coffees, Alex’s dad stood up to address the room.

  “I tell my daughter something all the time,” Jack said. “At the end of the day, sports is a memory-making business. And today, you made one for yourselves, and for all of us.”

  He raised his coffee mug in a toast.

  “And not just on the field,” he added.

  The spirits in the room lifted a bit after that. Alex blamed it on the sugar, but it was also fun to rehash all the best plays from The Game, like the highlight reels on ESPN. As disappointed as the girls were that their season was not to be, they tried focusing on the positives. Namely, their epic win today.

  Then, out of nowhere, the doorbell rang. Alex scanned the room for anyone who might be missing, but the entire team was accounted for, save Rashida, who was home recuperating.

  Lindsey got up and walked toward the front door.

  When she opened it, Chase and Johnny Gallotta were standing on her porch.

  Chase was the one with the check in his hand.

  47

  He handed the check to Lindsey.

  “This is from the guys and me,” he said.

  As far as Alex knew from personal experience, Lindsey Stiles had never been at a loss for words.

  But she was now.

  She stared at the check and then back at Chase and Johnny before the three of them walked into the living room.

  Lindsey handed the check over to Alex.

  When she looked down and saw that it was made out to “Cash,” in the amount of $5,000, she covered her mouth in shock.

  “How?” Alex finally managed.

  “You know those signs at The Game today?” Johnny said. “The guys on the team got together and went to Sam’s and Bostwick’s and all those places and asked if they’d want to advertise on the field in addition to the ads they’d already purchased in your program.”

  “Ten of them,” Chase said. “Five hundred dollars apiece.” />
  “What made you guys do it?” Alex asked.

  Chase managed a grin. “Ask him,” he said, nodding over at Jabril, who was seated on the couch with a piece of cake as big as a soccer ball.

  “Aw,” Jabril said, “all’s I did was explain a few things to my man Chase on the phone the other day.”

  “J told me that it was time for me to get into the game, and not just The Game,” Chase said.

  He put air quotes around the last two words.

  “Told you I know how to get the word out,” Jabril said with a wink.

  “Anyway,” Johnny said, “that’s when we got to work, knowing we didn’t have much time. We did it on the down-low, kinda wanting it to be a surprise.”

  He grinned sheepishly.

  “And thinking it would make you guys feel better after we beat you,” he added with a hint of embarrassment. “So much for that.”

  Alex laughed. “You have to admit, though, it was a great game.”

  Chase sighed, then nodded. “Where’d you come up with that move on the winning goal?”

  “I saw you do it in a game last season,” Alex said, and Chase’s cheeks went pink.

  Then she explained to him and Johnny how they’d come up short in their fundraising, but now, thanks to them, they had $2,500 more than they needed.

  “What should we do with the extra cash?” Annie asked.

  “Pretty sure those charities are still in need,” Lindsey said.

  “Win-win,” said Alex.

  “More like win-win-win,” said Chase.

  Sophie came over then, squeezing herself next to Alex. “Got any room for one more win?” she said. “I just found out we made the cut. We’re going to nationals!”

  Alex turned and hugged her friend fiercely. “Never had any doubt,” she said.

  The noise and laughter resumed, and while twenty minutes ago it felt as though the roof had collapsed on them, now, Alex thought, they were raising it.

  Five minutes into their arrival, Chase slapped his forehead, saying he’d forgotten that a bunch of other guys from the team were waiting outside for him and Johnny. Lindsey told him to invite them inside, and so the party expanded.