One Team One Dream
One Team One Dream! Lights shinning all around you, like you’re on stage at a concert. With the light gleaming on your face and announcers recognizing everybody as if they were at a boxing match. Even before we start the game fans and parents are screaming their lungs out already. Seeing the determination on our opponents faces while shaking their hands going down the line got our team pumped up for the start of the game. Every team member giving everything they have to come out on top and win that trophy. Nervously waiting on the court for the referee to blow his whistle.
Jump ball! Who has it? Game on. Our high school team was ranked number one in the district. All of us girls on the team have been playing together since kindergarten. We were so close and knew each other like the back of our hands. knowing every play by heart and where every person would be on the court, we had confidence in each other and throwing a no-look pass was easy. We were like a huge family which made us very successful on the court. Our team had won four district games and twenty league games. Leaving one district game left to take us to the District championship.
Our last game was played against our biggest opponents in high school going back and fourth with us taking either victory or tears. Both teams were competing for the front page of that daily newspaper. To the people of the community, we were famous. Down by ten or more at the half we realized we needed to kick it into gear. Fourth quarter came around and we pulled ahead in the last final minutes and won a great victory! We were heading to state. Tears of joy ran down our faces. Everyone frantically ran across the basketball court like a stampede of Merkle 2 lephants escaping a lion’s grasp. State was one of the biggest tournaments for basketball. Every team from the district, about 30 teams, were in the state championship. The last time our school made it to state for any sport was back in 2002. Our school was so proud of us, and even the staff. Our principal got our team a shuttle to take to the games and the school provided us with ten dollars each day for food. State was only three days but free money is always good! Our amazing family and friends were so supportive of our team. They made us tons of signs and provided us with lots of candy.
One of our teammate’s mom’s made us all key chains that had our names on them along with our team motto: “One Team One Dream”. Our coach was so proud of our success this season. He also surprised us with one of the best gifts of all. Coach Rob went out of his way to get us new warm-up jerseys with our last names and our numbers on them. It was so exciting we all ran and jumped on him as he fell to the ground laughing hysterically. For the last couple practices we had before the state games we all wore our warm-ups to practice. We all loved them that much!
Getting ready in the locker room we were all getting in the zone, and listening to gangster music to get us pumped up. Game day was finally here, we were all waiting for this day for so long. Walking out of the locker room one by one the teams were looking at us while fans of the other teams glared at us. As we were warming up on the court we blocked them out of our heads. The first game we played was a breeze and we beat them by a great number of points. They were good sports and all wished us good luck in our next games. The second game was not quite a breeze, we ended up winning by a whopping 5 points.
That amazing win got us to the final game in the state championship. Jumping up with parallelism, tearing up with joy, and taking pictures for the newspaper we all felt famous. Although we could not get ahead of ourselves because we still had one more game to go! All sitting in the locker room listening to coach talk our hands sweaty and locked, and our legs bouncing from anxiety. Walking on that court we saw fans packed from topped to bottom of the Merkle 3 bleachers all squished together. Jump ball? We lost the tip, now on defense, they scored the first two points.
Another 2 points then 3. Our whole team was freaking out. We had to call a timeout. Our coach stood up and said one thing to us, “One team One dream”. We all knew exactly what that meant and couldn’t help but smile. Game on after screaming WHOO! . We got back on that court and took over that whole first half, baskets one right after another. I started dribbling down the court taking the opposing girl one on one across half court. I passed it to my teammate Ashlee, she dribbled it into the key where she was facing the basket and then dishes it off to Jamie our post.
Who then skips the ball to the opposite side where I was standing behind the three point line. I got the ball and took my shot. As it sank through the net, I felt great because that shot got us ahead by three points right at half time! Second half comes around and we lose our heads, we all just let go. None of us were in it to win it. None of our shots were dropping and the other team was just dominating the game. Final buzzer rang we ended up losing 56-48. We did not drop our heads we all just got together in a circle and cried a bit, raised our heads and hands to the fans.
While also bowing our heads to God and thanking him for giving us this amazing journey to state basketball. Everyone stood and clapped, even the winning team came and gave us hugs. We may have lost that state championship game but we gave it our all. Even though we were sad, we were happy at the same time. We had made it so far and accomplished so much. We had a huge section in the paper on us. It talked about our accomplishments and how we grew as a family. Even the paper recognized us as “One Team One Dream”
