Flagrant Foul (gxg)

Chapter 47

But it didn't matter. Her team was trying so hard to get her going, that the rest of her teammates were not playing their regular game. So, at halftime, while Tegan already had 22 points, we still had a comfortable 48-34 lead, and I'd made sure to get several dunks on Tegan that would look wonderful on a poster. I could tell that Tegan was getting upset at the score, and the dunks, and it made me smile as I ran up and down the court. Maybe she thought that with her playing and scoring well, it would be enough to get them a win. It doesn't work that way. In contrast, we were much more balanced, with Leah, Imani and me each having eight points, and Dayana draining three pointers and leading us in scoring with a dozen points.

In the second half, things got even worse for them. Leah caught fire, and was hitting almost every shot she was taking, and then Tegan's team just started playing nasty. She was throwing elbows and hips, while Tia and Jen were tripping people and just playing dirty whenever they could.

During the next time out, Coach Bates was brutally honest. "All right ladies, we've seen what they're doing. I want to slow down every possession so we can minimize it. Drag out every possession. I don't want anyone shooting with more than ten seconds left on the shot clock. Just keep playing tight defense and they won't be able to catch us. I'll talk to the referees and see if they can start calling some of these fouls that they're letting slide, because otherwise it's going to get out of hand."

We all nodded at that, figuring if we slowed the game down, they wouldn't have so many chances to trip us and stuff. Coach was true to her word too and talked to the referees about the direction of the game, and they nodded as though they would do something like talking to Coach Austin to get her players under control. They didn't. I guess the refs thought that tournament basketball should be played by football rules.

The new plan worked, and while we weren't scoring as much as we had because we took less shots, they couldn't catch up because we were wasting time just standing and dribbling. They may have hated it, but they couldn't do much to stop us unless they hit virtually every shot they took. They tried, and near the end of the third quarter had closed the score to only a dozen points after Melissa hit a layup. We knew we were going to have to score more and went back to our old way of playing.

The next time down the floor, they missed a three pointer, and Leah passed me the ball as I ran down the court for what I thought was going to be an easy layup. Tegan thought differently though, and maybe assumed I was going to dunk it, because she barreled straight through me while I was in midair, hitting my head with her elbow before virtually tackling me into the stanchion that holds the net up, face first.

I felt a sickening crunch, and fell to my knees, my hand over my nose as blood started trickling from it. There were yells and screams from behind me, and I turned to see Dayana wrestling with Tegan on the ground, and the rest of the girls pushing each other. It wasn't pretty. The refs were blowing their whistles, but it took a while to get everything calmed down.

While they were doing that, Kari raced to my side, a cloth in her hand that she put over my nose. "Tilt your head back." She applied a compress as I followed her commands, somewhat happy my nose took the hit this time, so I didn't black out.

"How bad is it?" I asked a little woozily.

"You probably have a broken nose, and Coach is going to kill some refs. We'll have to get you checked out for another concussion, hard to say though. How are you feeling?"

"Sore!" I groaned. I felt arms wrap around me, though I couldn't see who it was. "But otherwise okay!"

"Babe! Are you okay?" Skye whispered in my ear, answering my question. "That looked like it hurt!"

"It's just my nose. I'll be fine," I assured her. Knowing my luck, my nose would be squished or twisted or something.

"You better still be able to breathe when you go down on me!" she said, to lighten the mood, making Kari choke with laughter. "I guess I better do that for you till you're better!"

"You're killing me!" I hope she didn't mind waiting, my nose was feeling all stuffed up and I didn't think I could breathe through it. "You know I'd still try!"

"You better not!" Kari commanded. "Can we get you checked out before you start trying to scuba dive on your fiancé?"

"I'm sorry, we make a lot of silly sex jokes when we're messed up." I could only shrug.

"I can understand that," Kari agreed. "I do that with my... Umm. My friends."

Well, that was interesting again. Was our trainer in a relationship that she wasn't going to talk about? It reminded me a little about the soccer team that had visited us, though I wasn't sure if that could be it. It would explain the secrecy though, not that I'd tell anyone about my suspicions. I was curious though.

I saw Coach Bates pushing through the crowd now that the refs had settled people down and she was looking down at me while Kari kept the compress on me "How are you holding up?"

"I'm okay coach," I promised. "I can play."

"No chance," Kari stated. "You had a concussion two months ago, and just took another blow to the head. We need to get you checked out. Not to mention the probable broken nose. You're not playing."

Coach nodded, agreeing with the statement. "I know you want to play, but we'll need you in the next game. Let's get you checked out. Tegan got another flagrant foul and was ejected from the game. We're going to be talking to both the conference and the NCAA about her actions though. She can't keep acting like this. They have suspensions for fighting, but this is obviously a personal vendetta against you based on your history."

"Yeah, I think we can all agree on that."

"Bitch," Skye muttered. "If they keep letting her play, she's going to really hurt you again."

"I can handle her, beautiful. Don't sweat it."

They ended up having to take me back to the locker room once the game was back from a television time out. The team all gave me high fives, and Imani sank the free throws from Tegan's foul since I couldn't shoot them. With Tegan gone, NC State looked down and embarrassed, where our team was back to being pissed. I knew they were in good shape.

I guess it was time to find out how badly I was hurt.

Again.