Flagrant Foul (gxg)

Chapter 43

The game against Syracuse went well. I didn't play as much as I normally would, only 20 minutes or so, but I came out of it feeling good, and knowing that I would be even better against Boston College. If that went well, then I'd be back at full strength just in time to go across town to visit NC State. I was looking forward to that, if only to show Tegan that she hadn't beaten me with her dirty play. Besides, I still owed them more losses. I wanted them to dread every time they faced us!

By the end of that first game back, Kari had become my shadow. Every time I came to the bench, or every time there was a time out on the court, she was checking on me. I understood why she was doing it, and I'm sure Coach Bates gave her that directive, so I didn't mind much. They were being cautious with me, and I hoped I kept passing whatever tests they were giving me.

Kari did the same thing at the BC game, though it wasn't as obvious because I was feeling great now. Against Syracuse I'd been a little apprehensive, and not as aggressive. But now I knew I was back, and I played my normal game. They still didn't let me play as many minutes as normal, which was fine, but when I was on the court, I was still me.

It was four more days until the next game against Tegan, and I was more than ready!

The new goggles worked great in the games, and Skye said they looked stylish too. I know the campus media group got some good pictures of me in them, and I liked them in the shots they posted on the team website. It was a good look with my hair still white. My hair had grown out a little, but it was still short, and Skye still loved running her hands through it.

When it was finally game day, there was a long caravan of cars headed over to the NC State campus for the event. It was another nationally televised game, and there was even more hype after the events in the last game. There was bad blood in the air, and a ton of our fellow students wanted to be there to watch us destroy them in the rematch. That included our fellow athletes, the majority of the women's soccer team that had won the NCAA championship back in the beginning of December.

They had premium seating right behind the bench, and they were all giving Kari hugs as they were getting their seats. Some of those girls were tall enough to have been playing for us! "You have a lot of admirers back there," I whispered to Kari as she was making sure I was good before the game.

She looked away quickly and blushed a little. I knew she was their trainer too, but it did make me wonder! Not that I was going to say anything, but yeah, I was curious. "Well, I haven't seen them much since the championship, so it's nice to have them here. I spent all season with them, like I'm doing for all of you. Hopefully next season, you can come to some of their games too."

"I like the sound of that, we should absolutely stick together!" We may play different sports, but we were still representing the school together!

Not only was the soccer team there, but we had enough other fans supporting us to fill half of the NC State arena. This might be the most fun away game we'd had so far, or at a minimum we'd have the most fan support we'd ever had on the road. Indeed, when the teams were introduced, we got a ton of cheers. More shocking was that when the NC State team was introduced, Tegan was booed, and not only by our fans, but by hers as well.

Well, that was interesting.

My goal for the game was to just ignore her. Obviously, I couldn't ignore her as a player, but I could ignore her as a person. I'd still have to guard her, and deal with whatever she tried to do whenever she guarded me. But as for interacting with her, there would be nothing on my part.

The other team tried to keep things civil too by having Tegan guard Bryn and moving Melissa to defend me. They regretted that quickly, as Melissa was about four inches shorter than me and 30 pounds lighter. She was a decent player, but every time down the floor, Leah or Imani would give me the ball down low and I'd just shoot or dunk right over Melissa. They let us do that half a dozen times before they started double teaming me with either Tia or Jen, which didn't help because as soon as they came towards me, I'd pass it right back to whoever they left open.