Flagrant Foul (gxg)

Chapter 49

We beat Louisville, and the less said the better. I only played half the game, and it was rough. I used the nose brace, but it could only do so much to help, and I was getting banged and jostled the entire game. Everyone knew about the injury to my face, and Coach Bates finally pulled me out of the game when I took an elbow to the nose that dropped me to my knees, crying out in pain. Was it intentional? Who knows. But, the ref called a foul, and we got a couple of points out of it, and that was the best I could hope for.

With me out of the game, it was tougher, but the rest of the team played great, and Bryn nailed a three pointer with five seconds left in the game that sealed the win. I'd have cried happy tears, but it hurt too much. But at the final buzzer, fans rushed the court cheering. Skye rushed to me, gently kissing me so as to not hurt me. Zara and Gee were less restrained, jumping on Imani and Leah and kissing them all over in the middle of the court. Bryn and Scarlett were in a heated make out session on the bench, and Dayana was being soundly kissed by her boyfriend. I guess one of us had to be straight!

But the win got us a number one seed for the NCAA tournament, which meant we'd start out with some winnable games before we got to the tough ones. That was what we'd been aiming for, and there were a lot of cheers in the locker room after the game. Not from me, I was just clapping because my face hurt to talk, and I had Kari looking at my nose again, but we were over the moon happy. Getting the number one seed was only the first step though, now we had to go win the whole thing!

Winning the number one seed also meant something else, playing your regional games close to home, so they're a lot like home games. For instance, we got our games right back in Greensboro. Number one Baylor got Wichita, Kansas, Stanford got Spokane, Washington and the University of Connecticut got Bridgeport, Connecticut. Not all of those were as close as us, except UConn, but they were within easier driving distance than others.

But if we made it past all those regional games, then we were headed down to Dallas for the Final Four. That was a hike, not that we could do much about it. The Final Four location moves every year, so you never knew where you might end up. But first, we had to win four in a row to get to the Final Four, then win two more in Dallas to win it all. Six games in a row. Six games and it would make us legends here at school.

Imani was freaking out the most, having never tasted that success in the last two years, and had always expected it. Bryn and Dayana were seniors but hadn't thought they would have a chance to win, so they were just thrilled to be ranked so high. But Leah and I, we wanted this to be the start of four years of domination. Our regular season success was already paying off, with Coach Bates telling us about a couple of highly ranked recruits that had already committed to the team for the fall, and another that wanted to transfer from another program. We also had several girls on the bench, like Bryn's girlfriend Scarlett, that were really good and could fight for starting roles when Bryn and Dayana graduated.

From 2013-2016, the UConn Huskies won four championships in a row. The incoming 2013 freshmen had won every damn year they were there, and that was the standard that Leah and I wanted. Would it happen? I have no idea. But Kari told us about the soccer team pulling together to win, and now they wanted to repeat, and maybe we could do that too. Once you see success on the campus, you want to emulate it. Those girls were coming to our games now, and were some of our most vocal supporters. After our respective girlfriends of course.

A few days after Kate and Becca flew home, Imani and Zara joined me and Skye over at Leah and Gee's place. It had been an emotional weekend, since it was supposed to be the beginning of spring break, but we still had practices for our first round game at the end of the week. But for now, we were there to support Gee.

She had been planning on flying home for the beginning of spring break to see her family, then come back before our games, but that didn't happen. Evidently, her older brother watched the ACC Championship game, and had seen Gee and Leah on the court together kissing during the celebration after the win. Gee's plan to come out over Christmas hadn't gone well when that same brother had bragged about beating up a gay couple with his friends, and her father had praised him over dinner. Gee had quickly cancelled her plans about speaking up to them, but now the cat was out of the bag.