As the visitors for tonight, the Wildcats' girls basketball team leaves Livonia in a bus along with supporters drawn from players' families, which includes Aija's host family.
In Courland, sports played no role in social life at school. Here, especially given what I accomplished for the school in the past few days, I was the center of attention, because I was the Wildcats' best player in quiz bowl and, more importantly, in basketball. I guess, I wasn't prepared for this in the slightest, Aija reflects on how playing her best basketball game as a Wildcat during the first round of the state tournament made her grasp the differences between her school life in Pointe-Coupée Parish vs in her hometown in Courland.
"The Venomous Agendas appear to have a stronger front court than back court. It appears our only hope is to force the opponent to commit fouls because we can't take for granted that Aija will be able to repeat her performance of last Thursday" the Wildcats' coach harangues the players in the bus.
"That's easier said than done, coach; Aija can't do everything on this team!" the Wildcats' starting point guard retorts.
"Yeah, we must protect Aija when we are on the offense, and keep our passing, as well as shooting options open!" the Wildcats' second-string small forward adds.
"The Venomous Agendas crushed us in quiz bowl, we must prevent that from happening on the court!" a sibling of a Wildcats player adds.
"Don't need to remind me!" an irritated Aija yells in the direction of that supporter.
Meanwhile, in Jennings, as VA's band takes up positions in the fieldhouse, several early birds also get seated in the student section, including Nadine, Finn, Valter and, of course, Pablo. As well as George, Lilina and a handful of others, most of whom wear the purple-and-green. The student section is, simply put, packed.
In the VAs' locker room, however, the tension in the atmosphere increases as the players get dressed in white and purple as the home team.
"Let's show these Latvians that we mean business on the court tonight!" Carrie tries to encourage the VAs' players.
"Carrie, until proven otherwise, there's only one Latvian playing against us tonight; everyone else on the Wildcats is a bona fide Louisiana resident!" Audrey points out to her teammates.
"You were the one who told me about how Livonia was connected to Latvia to begin with! And you did so in some sort of question with seemingly obscure facts about Latvia!" Carrie shows her lack of understanding of quiz bowl.
"We're not talking about the same Livonia at all! Just because their best player, the one we need to always screen, is Latvian, doesn't mean the rest of the team is Latvian, too!"
"Our opponents will be hungry. And they will be the underdogs, but please... don't underestimate their other players! They will think that we act as if they are nothing without Aija!" Kent warns his players. "That line of thinking sank Minden!"
"Which means we'll have to force the other opposing players into shooting three-pointers!" Heather seems to have a flash.
But when the VAs emerge from the locker room, the band starts performing the fight song, and the crowd comes out in force. And the student section seems to be the noisiest part of the fieldhouse. The principal stands at center court, while the players are on their benches:
"Welcome to the second round of the 2030 Division II Non-Select LHSAA girls' basketball state tournament, pitting the twenty-seven seed Livonia Wildcats against the eleven seed Venomous Agendas!" the principal announces the contestants. "Now, for the national anthem, sung by Heather Campbell!"
Heather then gets to the principal, who hands over the mic to her. As she sings the national anthem, the game is about to start, with both teams taking up positions for the initial face-off at center court.
With Heather and Aija fighting over the ball when the referee throws the ball in the air, the VAs start the game on the defensive, forcing Heather to screen Aija and draw her away from the two-point zone. However, Aija sees an opening to pass the ball to the point guard. Which pushes Carrie to leap forward to attempt intercepting the ball in mid-air.
"Come on, Carrie, do more than just being a ball carrier!" Finn hollers in Carrie's direction.
As Carrie, well, carries the ball to the offensive zone, she passes the ball to Audrey, who shoots the ball upon receipt. The ball hits the backboard...
"Ballista! Ballista!" Pablo hollers in Audrey's direction while the ball approaches the hoop.
"Woohoo! The VAs scored the first two points of the game!" Ethan exclaims.
But then the Wildcats run across the court, with Aija dribbling all the way to center court. Heather seems to block Aija's way forward, Taylor is covering the opposite shooting guard, and so on... Left with no choice, Aija then throws the ball from center court, in hopes of scoring a three-pointer.
VA fans watch the ball while their favorites dash towards the basket, in hopes of catching the ball in its descent. And, as it looks like the ball is about to get into the hoop, the Wildcats fans in attendance, wearing green and yellow, start hollering all over the place. And without any coherence.
"Latvija! Latvija!" the mother of Aija's host family hollers, in Latvian, albeit with a Cajun accent, as the Wildcats score their first three points of the game.
"What does Latvija even mean?" Virginie asks her, raising her eyebrows while seated behind the Livonia supporter wearing wine red.
"Latvia in Latvian. However, it's the only word I know in Latvian"
The game continues as Carrie runs and dribbles the ball down the court at full speed. But she feels forced to pass the ball rather than to shoot it because Aija is blocking her "line of fire". With feints, she manages to confuse the opposing small forward and the point guard.
"Earlier this season, Carrie was good at one thing: carrying the ball! Now she has improved her game in other areas!" Tyler comments as Heather receives the ball from Carrie.
And Pablo watches, in front of Tyler, Heather shoot the ball while the opposing players vacate the area around their hoop. Audrey told me about how today's opponents have no depth, yet they seem prepared to go back on the offense regardless of whether Heather scores, Pablo starts thinking as Heather throws the ball for a field goal attempt.
Carrie and Heather are in position to catch the rebound if the latter fails to score, but the other three seem to prefer containing the Wildcats' forward movements.
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Now that the VAs are up 4-3, they are made to feel like they must fight tooth and nail for a bit. That they need to make every block or steal count. Or provoke fumbles (or the basketball equivalent of such) from their opponents if possible.
And yet, Carrie, who, for a while, mostly carried and passed the ball, finds herself in a situation where Aija appears to force her to take the shot, a little behind the three-point line.
"Carrier, launch the aircraft!" Finn yells at Carrie as if he was an admiral in an aircraft carrier's CIC.
"Carrier? Who do you refer to as Carrier?" Dayton asks Finn, furrowing an eyebrow.
"I never saw you call Carrie, well, Carrier, even at basketball games!" Pablo points out as Carrier leaps, ball in hand.
Carrie, feeling the clock ticking on her, pretends to pass the ball to a phantom player at the hoop, but is really shooting at it. And the resulting shot barely clears Aija's hands...
"Looks like the Courland Basket failed to catch the ball!" a nearby Wildcat supporter quips, which Pablo overhears.
And, as the ball travels to the hoop, it takes its sweet time to enter it. In a downward spiral, which makes it slower to enter the hoop than Carrie would have liked. She stands ready to get the rebound, but swiftly moves away from the hoop when 3 more points are added to the VAs' score, putting them in the lead by this amount. Once the Wildcats are in possession of the ball...
"The Courland Basket? Is that how you guys over in Livonia refer to Aija?" Pablo asks the Wildcat supporter.
"Aija does come from Courland... but she never seemed to talk about her life in Courland much after she was formally introduced to Livonia High's community!"
Taylor ends up forcing the steal from one of the Wildcats' supporting players, and they go on the offense once more. After a few seconds of dribbling the ball, she shoots and... narrowly misses, at which point Virginie signals the end of the first quarter by blowing into her trumpet.
The VA players gossip on the bench at the end of the first quarter:
"Courland Basket? How did Aija go from being The Latvian to The Courland Basket?" Heather is bewildered by such a rapid change in nickname, especially since she heard the words Courland Basket late in the first quarter. "Audrey, can you tell me if Courland has any relationship to Latvia?"
"Yes. Courland is a region in western Latvia, so the Wildcats got more specific!"
"And Finn even called me Carrier!" Carrie exclaims, and then shrugs.
The question being: where does she fit in Courland's basketball circuit? I knew only that, elsewhere in the world, youth sports were handled by out-of-school clubs, but no more than that, Audrey muses while the coach disburses some platitudes and other hackneyed words about keeping up the effort in the rest of the game. About a 3-point lead being fragile.
But, if teams are evenly matched, a basketball game will often come down to the last two minutes. And the last two minutes would then feature the most exciting basketball of the game.
And yet, Livonia's supporting players stepped up to the plate during the second and third quarters, keeping the game close. Of course, at half-time, some students changed seats, so Pablo's fellow quiz bowlers, along with their love interests, are back to being seated together.
"Nadine, if we win tonight, all remaining games will be played on the road, so no matter what happens, enjoy the remainder of the game!" Pablo tells his quiz bowl teammate.
"We win, and we'll then play a higher-seeded team. Not necessarily the highest seed, but the lowest seed still in play, outside of Livonia, is Pearl River" Nadine tells her.
"And it's not looking good for teams seeded lower than us right now... We are the closest to winning among all teams with double-digit seeds!" Ethan tells them. "Realistically, it's going to be Wossman or Albany, and the next-closest to winning is Pearl River! No other double-digit seed still in play has any real chance to win..."
And, going into the last ten seconds of the game, the Venomous Agendas are trailing by a mere two points. As Carrie dashes through the court, she feels the Wildcats, led by Aija, breathing down her neck. Not to mention the clock ticking on the VAs to score the final two points. She tries to evade the opposing players and that brings her close to the hoop. Close enough for her to lay up and throw the ball in mid-air a split-second before the end of the quarter.
As Virginie rings the signal for the end of the final quarter, the ball is approaching the hoop. And... Carrie kept the VAs alive and into overtime. The home crowd goes crazy.
"Is that a team without depth? They managed to force an overtime on the VAs!" Pablo seems a little bewildered by how the other players played better than he expected.
"And... Pearl River lost, forty-nine to forty-five!" Ethan sighs.
"Yeah, I get it, it means we will play Wossman on Thursday if we win tonight..." Lilina sighs upon hearing about the implications of Pearl River losing.
Stay strong, Audrey, four more minutes and this game will end. If Aija can be beaten, of course, Pablo ruminates while both teams drink cold drinks. And feel hungry, as well as tired, too. Thirty-two minutes of intense basketball play have drained both teams. Just before the overtime begins:
"This feels... unreal! Overtime in the playoffs! The good news is that Aija is in fouling trouble: what we have to do is provoke a foul from her!" Kent explains what the plan for overtime is.
"If I may, she only seems to eat fouls when she either tries to steal the ball or we try to do so!" Charlotte points out.
"Venomous! Agendas!" the crowd starts chanting when the time to resume play arrives.
Ethan, rather than watching the game, watches a clip from the Pearl River game on his phone, and more specifically a spectacular three-pointer from almost the entire court by Pearl River's Chinese exchange student.
Three minutes into the overtime period, both teams are back to square one, only with six more points each. Audrey attempts a field goal, and, as Aija attempts to block it, Audrey takes an elbow hit, causing the referee to blow the whistle. And call a foul on Aija as the field goal succeeds nonetheless.
"Ouch... This couldn't have come at a worse time!" the Wildcats' coach asks for a timeout.
While the Wildcats need to rethink their gameplan because Aija has fouled out of the game, the VAs get much-needed rest before Audrey gets her free throw. Speaking of free throws...
"Ballista! Now that the Courland Basket is pierced, the game is now yours to win!" Pablo tells in her direction.
With Audrey missing the free throw, play resumes for the final minute of the game, where the opponent feels the pressure to score. However, without Aija, the Wildcats play much more sloppily on the defensive. Which leads to the VAs scoring four more points, for a total lead of six points.
"And the Venomous Agendas win this game, sixty-nine to sixty-three! The quarterfinals game will be held at Wossman on Thursday!" the principal announces to the crowd, who goes crazy upon hearing it.
"Woohoo! The VAs advance!" Lilina exclaims while Tyler and Virginie play the fight song behind them.
However, rather than Pablo kissing Audrey at center court, Finn kisses Carrie with the whole crowd looking at them.
"Bravo Carrie, it was your best game all season!" Finn tells her before she goes to the locker room.
"Thank you!"
The VAs return to their locker room, where they're treated to a brief overview of what to expect from Wossman based on clips from earlier tonight.
"We might be able to win against Wossman but we will have to be quick on the ball. You struggled to contain Aija tonight, and, while the other Wildcats did play better than in the regular season, Wossman is known for making fouls a core part of their strategy!" Kent debriefs the team. "At this level, talent isn't enough anymore; we need strategy and coordination!"
"Yeah, that did Minden in, and the playoffs sure are a different game!" Heather exclaims.
However, the heartbroken Wildcats return to Livonia, their heads held high. They never expected to make it past the first round, so being the lowest seed to advance this year already means a lot to them. I guess, I will study more for the quiz bowl state championship during the next few weeks. I have a pretty good idea of what to expect there, based on playing the best teams at Leesville, Aija ruminates while returning to the visitors' locker room. VA played much like these Lithuanian basketball teams, and Lithuania isn't far from my home in south-eastern Courland!
A tired Audrey meets with Pablo at the locker room's exit.
"That three-pointer in the third quarter! That's your best three-pointer of the season, and the only one like it I saw was on a clip from Pearl River!" Pablo is about to kiss her.
"Pearl River! We lost against them early this season because of a buzzer-beating three-pointer!" The mention of Pearl River triggers unpleasant memories in Audrey. "However, I'll grant you that particular buzzer-beater against us was worthy of a clip!"
The unpleasantness of the memories of that game against Pearl River fades from her mind when the kiss begins. If Pablo thinks I can score three-pointers like Huiling, that Chinese player for Pearl River the Rebels' fanbase call the Chinese Bridge... I'm going to need it against Wossman, even though Huiling was good at one and only one thing: scoring three-pointers.