The Final Opportunity
The
Pewaukee Pirates had worked so hard to get to the biggest stage in high school
basketball: the state championship. They definitely didn’t want that
opportunity go to waste. The Pirates had gone 23-1 in their in-conference games
with their only loss coming to Whitnall. Although the Pirates did beat Whitnall
at home, no one knew how the game would go at a neutral site. The Kohl Center
was hardly neutral for the Wisconsin Badgers.
Pewaukee beat the
Waterford Wolverines in the semifinals by a slim margin of 5 points. Jack
Gohlke hit 4-4 free throws to seal the game off. Frustrated, the Waterford
players leisurely walked across the floor to head into the locker room. While
the Pirates fans celebrate, the players know they have to keep their mind on
their next game against Whitnall.
The big game was
today and the players filtered out of the hotel to get onto the team buses.
Nothing seemed to be wrong, but Jack Gohlke and Jaeger Hoang were not on the
bus. The coach was the only one to notice, but he presumed they had already
gone to the arena and were just trying to warm up early. What the coach didn’t
know was that two of his players had in fact decided to walk to the arena.
“I didn’t realize
the Kohl Center was this far away,” complained an impatient Jaeger.
“Neither did I.”
Jack replied, “I thought that is was only a 20 minute walk.”
“I think it’s
already been like 20 years.” Jaeger retorted sarcastically.
“I doubt it has
been that long. We probably only have like 10 minutes to go.” Jack answered.
All of a sudden Jack thought that he saw a group of angry Whitnall fans down an
alley. He asked Jaeger, “Did you see that?”
“See what?”
“Never mind,” Jack
responded not wanting to sound frightened.
“What were you
talking about?” Jaeger asked.
“Well I thought
that I saw a group of deranged Whitnall fans.” Jack stated.
“Wow, you have
issues.” Jaeger acknowledged as he laughed hysterically at Jack’s comment. They
continued to walk down the street, and Jack kept peeking into alleys making
sure that there weren’t any Whitnall fans looking to cause some trouble.
Nervously, Jack started sprinting down the alley, with a heart beating at the
speed of light, while Jaeger had to hustle to keep up.
“Let’s just get to
the arena and suit up.” Jack said in a panicky tone.
“Calm down.”
Jaeger replied in a voice that wasn’t quite as calm as he would have liked.
Focusing on the game, Jaeger tried to slow Jack down so that he wouldn’t be so
afraid of his own hallucinations so that he would be ready to go. Achieving the
state championship goal would require a great amount of focus and
concentration.
“Okay, I think we
are almost there.” Jack stated as he finally slowed down.
Considering the
circumstances, Jack and Jaeger should have been very nervous about what was
around that corner, but the two of them were very good at handling these kind
of circumstances. As they turned the corner they saw… the Kohl Center.
Irritating was the
word that came to Jaeger’s mind when he thought about this experience with
Jack. He was bored out of his mind the whole time and thought that they
should’ve taken the bus along with the rest of the squad. Finally, they could
relax and prepare for the biggest game of their high school career.
