Chapter 89 National Championship 1

As a player of a team that arrived at the national championship, it was normal that Joe knew to convert the Free Throws, but perhaps by the nervousness of a difficult game, he ended up missing the 2 attempts and the fault of Mark ended up being positive.

Mark himself was the one who got the rebound from the second failed attempt and passed the ball to Jake to start another attack, as the Bats team was all in the attacking block and were a little shaken by having lost an attack, Jake just got the ball and ran at maximum speed.

It should be remembered that because Jake was playing as a team and as a point guard, he never ran at his top speed because of his statistics trained in those nearly 3 years were bigger than all his colleagues at Middle School.

So when Jake accelerated, all opponents were left behind and in a few seconds, he was alone doing a layup to score the 2 points.

With these 2 points scored by Jake the Elite team already had a 4-point lead over the Bats in less than 1 minute after the game started, thinking that the Bats team's mood slowed, even more, when they started attacking again.

The PG of the Bats team despite not being very skilled still managed to control the mood of his team a little, so in their attack, he passed the ball to Paul who seemed to want to show his skills.

So Paul who received the ball and tried to pass by Carter when he saw that he would not get dribble he just forced a mid-range shot to make the 2 points.

This was the strategy that coach Mike organized for the game, the Elite team should appear to be slow in defense and when the opponent was distracted they would steal the ball.

Of course coach Mike can only risk using this strategy because he relied on his players' defensive skills; if a weak team did that, it would only make it easier for the opponent to attack.

Then Jake organized the attack and passed the ball to Mark who soon turned and did a layup to score 2 more points and further decrease Joe's will that was marking him.

So the game continued like this and when the first period ended the Elite team was ahead by 6 points, almost at the end of the first period Jake stole the ball of the opponent's PG and makes 2 more points ahead.

In the second period of the game although the Bats tried to keep calm the 6-point advantage was still stressful for the players, and Jake still began to slow the game and spend the possession of the ball as if they wanted to keep the advantage like that.

On the other side, the Bats' team PG was falling on Jake's pace and was trying to get off the ball quickly in the attack, he realized that any hesitation he gave Jake would take to steal the ball.

So he had to make each move with the care that made him even more stressed, Jake also became more relaxed the more the game heated up, he always kept his mind cold and looked for the best move every time in his attacks.

And for all who watched the game this difference in behavior was apparent, so this time in this national championship everyone could see Jake's playing style and it would not be like last year where he was eliminated before being seen.

When the second period and the first half of the game had ended the difference was 10 points, although the Bats team played better the advantage still existed, and if it continued so the game would end.

In addition to make worse the team of Bats were very tired by the stress of the game, after all, as the team was stronger all expected that after leaving the state championship winners could at least advance until the third round of the national championship.

But now they were losing in the first game to a team that was playing for the first time the national championship, this only served to increase their stress when they saw that they were 10 points behind on the scoreboard.

The game continued and everyone cheered to try to get the result, but Jake's team was relentless and when the game ended the Elite team had won by 16 points.

Everyone was very happy with the victory more as this was only the first game of a total of 6 was still too early for interviews, of course, Eric was there as in all games to follow the full trajectory to the national championship trophy.

When the regional championship started no one cared about Jake's team and he was there and now that they started the national championship no one believed in the Elite team and only Eric was there, and his reporter intuition said he would be the one who was right at the end.

When he saw that none of his colleagues from other states cared for the Elite team and still accompanied other teams in the early games, what he heard almost made him start laughing in front of them.

These reporters said that the reason was that Jake's team did not have any players who were a standout and that only his team who was very good, Eric thought this was funny because it was exactly the opposite that spoke of his team last year, that the staff had just Jake most did not have a strong staff.

After hearing this, Eric did not mind reminding them to these reporters, it was their fault for not having done simple research on last year if they did know that the Elite team had all the requirements to be the champion.

After the game ended Jake went home to tell his mother about the victory, Eva always got anxious about the first championship games more than other games, especially the one in which Jake was eliminated last year.

As soon as Jake told about her victory Eva gave a happy and relieved smile, she wanted Jake to continue happy as he was now, and not like last year when after just 1 month of Jake's birthday he was saddened by defeat.

Eva never told this to Jake, but a few days after Jake had lost the national championship game, she was seriously worried that Clara's and Tiffany's companies would give up on the sponsorship deal, after all, she knew that with Jake eliminating the two companies they lost a chance to make national propaganda through it.

So she was sincerely grateful and wanted to be friends with the two businesswomen, because after they did not end the contract that Eva was sure they were sincere and did not think only of the profit.

After winning that game easily by facing a stronger team like the Bats, Jake was more confident in winning that national championship, not to mention that he knew that the players of his team could play even better than today.

So after dinner with his mother, Jake went to rest relaxed.

In the following days many students from his school were talking about sports, this year it seemed that the investment began to work so that the Elite school was the reference school in sports.

It was not just the Middle School basketball team that had advanced well in the national championship and yes all sports were having their teams perform well, both in Middle School and high school.

From everyone in the school maybe just Jake's teachers who were not happy with that, to be specific only part of the group of teachers, some followed the advice that was given after the direct scolding and realized that they did not need all of this if the student did not bother the class and was the best in the room.

Teachers who were not convinced after everything that happened did not care what was right or wrong anymore, they just did not like being reprimanded by the principal because of a student, this had become a personal case to some of them.

So they were just waiting for Jake and his team to lose some game so they would not meet the president's expectations and so they would have an excuse to teach Jake a lesson, at least a suspension they wanted to stop their anger.

The principal could only be disappointed with these teachers who still had this in mind after he called Jake into his room to talk about this subject, several calls came to him the next day to warn him not to cause trouble for Jake.

And these callers were all owners or shareholders of large corporations, some even had friendship with the current president, right now that Jake did something wrong he would not call him into his room to complain, not to mention a resentment of some teachers.

In fact, the principal knew that these continuing teachers who had encouraged other teachers to do so, even though very successful teachers did not make much money in their careers.

So the only thing they could be proud of for others about their careers was when they taught people who became great figures after they grew up, like some senators or artists, so when they knew someone who did not care about their classes was an insult to that pride.