A Story of Love

Chapter 21: Eyes

7 weeks later…

Jeric

I am in the ROS main office right now for a team meeting. The team was called for a meeting two days after we lost the quarter finals series. I know it’s too early for the Elasto Painters to get eliminated from conference. We are perceived to be one of the good teams. It’s kind of sad for everybody.

Now, my teammates and I are still wondering why Coach Yeng called for a meeting.

“Papagalitan siguro tayo?” Raymond said which made all of our faces longer.

“Siguro, ang aga kaya nating na-eliminate,” Kuya Beau added. There was a moment of silence inside the conference room.

“I don’t really think so,” Ahia Jeff said calmly after he thought of something.

“How can you say that?” Ahia Ty asked.

“I talked to Coach last night and he doesn’t sound upset,” Ahia Jeff explained which made us all think. “But of course we talked about how the conference went for all of us. We discussed the things that we did wrong then the things we need to improve on, individually and as a team.”

Then there was silence again.

“EH kung hindi upset baka bibigyan tayo ng award?” Alex said with a mischievous smile. Kuya Beau playfully hit his head.

“Early elimantion nga, bibigyan pa ng award? Tumahimik ka na nga lang diyan,” Kuya Beau said which made Alex scratch the area of his head where he got hit.

“Chill guys, let’s just wait for Coach and avoid scaring ourselves. I know they saw how we tried our best to win the game,” Kuya Gabe added.

“Tama nga naman si Gabe. Let’s just wait for coach,” Ahia Paul said.

After a few moments of making our speculations as what this meeting is about, the door swung open and our coaches came in. Ahia Jeff’s right, they don’t look upset.

“Morning boys,” Coach Yeng started.

“Morning coach,” we all answered in unison.

“We’re all here to talk about our early elimination this conference.” Trust Coach Yeng to be straightforward about things. We all swallowed after hearing his first sentence.

“We all had our ups and downs during the whole conference. At some games we were at our peak, at some we were at our lowest. The management saw that,” coach continued. My teammates and I look at each other saying “patay”. Our consistency is a shame.

“But they also saw your heart, perseverance and passion for the game. We had our lapses and the other teams took advantage of it. They also had step up their game double than we did and that’s understandable. The other teams were eliminated early few conferences before this one and they had time to improve and train. As for us we played almost the whole stretch of the conferences, we were able to reach to finals for a couple of times. Of course we gained experience along the way but we weren’t able to address the things we are not good on as much as we could,” Coach explained.