For the second straight game, Coach Crist started Jeff and Ron Arlow at the two guard spots. This time, though, he told them that he wanted Arlow handling the ball at the start of the game.
Jeff was baffled. He still hadn’t figured out Coach C’s reasons for having them share time at the position. He was even more baffled when he was told Arlow would run the offense to start the game.
He was a little slow leaving the locker room for warm-ups. As he reached the door, Coach Benyak was standing there. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Coach knows what he’s doing.”
Jeff assumed he was talking about Arlow starting at the point and wanted to ask what in the world he was thinking, but said nothing.
Coach C didn’t look like a genius in the first quarter. Chester Heights was every bit as good as Camden—especially when it came to shooting the ball. Their offense was pretty basic: The point guard, who was no taller than Jeff, would work off a high-ball screen at the top of the key and get into the lane, and whenever a defender closed on him, he would pitch the ball to the perimeter to an open shooter. If, by some chance, that shooter wasn’t open, he would quickly figure out who was open and get him the ball. It seemed as if everyone in a Chester Heights uniform could make a three.
In fact, during the first six minutes, Chester Heights attempted exactly one two-point shot—an open layup set up by their center, rebounding a rare miss from outside and putting the ball back in the basket just as Mike Roth arrived in time to foul.
The other eight shots taken by the visitors were all from outside the three-point line, and they made five of them. As the result, the score at the end of the first quarter was 18–8, Chester Heights.
Jeff had started reading Sports Illustrated online at the age of eight. His father had told him that he had started reading the magazine at eight and that the highlight of his week was coming home from school on Thursday afternoon and finding the magazine waiting for him.
Now the print magazine, which had been weekly for years, was only published twelve times a year. But there were online stories all the time. Jeff had read one recently on the evolution of the three-point shot, which had first come into existence on a permanent basis in high school and college basketball in 1986. The college line had recently been moved back to twenty-two feet, one and three-quarter inches, because it had become too easy a shot for too many players. But the high school line remained at nineteen feet, nine inches.
Watching Chester Heights’s sixth graders shoot the ball, Jeff was convinced it was time to move the high school line back. Maybe the middle school line, too.
Coach C subbed liberally at the start of the second quarter and Jeff found himself on the bench along with Arlow, who had turned the ball over three times in the first quarter. For once, Arlow had nothing to say. Midway through the quarter, Coach C walked over and pointed at the two of them: “Michaels, Arlow, get back in. Michaels, you take the point.”
By then, the score was 25–10.
On Merion’s first possession after he and Arlow had gotten back in the game, Jeff got a screen from Eric Billings, who then rolled to the basket when his man came up to deny Jeff an open shot. Jeff found him wide-open for an easy layup.
As he backpedaled downcourt, Jeff heard Coach C yelling to get Arlow’s attention. “Ron!” he yelled. “Do you see how it’s done? That’s how it’s done!”
If Arlow heard the coach, he didn’t act like it. Instead, he went for a steal on a pass to the wing, whiffed completely, and then scrambled back just in time to foul the open shooter as he drained yet another three.
Jeff looked at the bench to see how Coach C would react to that. There was no way to tell because Coach C had turned his back on the play and walked to the far end of the bench, hands on hips. Jeff wondered if he was still convinced that he knew what he was doing.
Not surprisingly, things were going even worse for the girls at that moment.
Andi and the other four players not in uniform sat on the end of the bench in their sweats. When the team came off the court to huddle with their coaches before the game started, the five of them stood to join the huddle.
Coach Josephson was having no part of it. “If you’re not playing, you don’t need to hear what’s being said here,” she said. “Consider yourselves lucky I’m even letting you sit on the bench.”
The five of them walked back and retook their seats at the end of the bench.
“What are we going to do?” Lisa said. “This is completely out of hand.”
“We could call Michael Barkann,” Maria said.
“No!” Andi said quickly. “We’re not doing that. All that does is prove her right: When the going gets tough, I run to the media.”
“But you didn’t run to the media on Tuesday,” Eleanor Dove said. “The media came to you.”
“And I’ll bet they’ll hear about this one way or the other,” Lisa added. “Someone will drop a dime.”
“Drop a dime?” the others said, looking at her quizzically.
Lisa laughed, which earned her a sharp look from the two players in uniform who weren’t starting. The five starters were walking onto the court for the start of the game.
Lisa ignored the glares. “It’s a phrase my dad always used about letting people know things that are going on. It’s back from when there were pay phones and a call cost a dime. If you wanted to tell someone something, you’d drop a dime.”
“How old is your father, a hundred?” Debbie Lee said.
Debbie was, without question, the quietest girl on the team. Andi had been surprised when she’d raised her hand to turn the benched four into the benched five prior to the game.
Everyone cracked up, causing the two coaches to glare angrily at them. They quieted down as the game started.
Not surprisingly, it was a rout from the beginning. Chester Heights was a well-coached team. Every time they had the ball on offense, they ran a play that almost always created an open shot. The Merion players looked baffled. Their center, who wasn’t that tall, played near the top of the key with her back to the basket and kept finding teammates for open layups or open threes.
“They call it the Princeton offense,” Maria whispered to Andi. “Every play goes through the center. She’s not their tallest girl, but she’s definitely their best passer.”
At the other end, Chester Heights pressed from the start. Andi was certain their coach had noticed only seven players warming up before the game and had decided to exploit Merion’s lack of depth. She had no reason to care why five Merion players weren’t playing.
Every time Merion inbounded after a Chester Heights score, whoever caught the inbounds pass was double-teamed instantly. Sitting on the bench, Andi could see the panic in the faces of her teammates. “We never spent a second in practice working against a zone press,” she said quietly to the others in the benched five.
It showed. Once, Jamie Bronson tried to dribble through a double-team and got stripped, leading to an easy layup. The next time the ball came inbounds to Jenny Mearns, who tried to throw a quick pass back to Bronson. The ball was deflected and went right to another Chester Heights player for yet another layup.
The score was 10–0 and the game still wasn’t four minutes old.
Coach Josephson quickly called time-out. For once, she was speechless.
Coach Axelson stepped into the middle of the huddle with a clipboard. Even from where she was sitting, Andi could tell that she was calmly trying to show the players how to deal with the zone press.
“You can’t hold onto the ball,” she said. “As soon as you catch it, the double-team is going to come.” She pointed at Bronson. “Jamie, as soon as that first pass comes inbounds, I want you breaking to the basket. Remember, when they double, someone’s always open.”
The time-out and Axelson’s coaching seemed to calm things down a little. Sure enough, on the next inbounds play, Mearns threw the ball downcourt as soon as she caught it to a streaking Bronson for a layup. At least, Andi thought, that broke the shutout.
But Chester Heights was simply too good for Merion. Occasionally, someone broke open against the press, but even when Merion did manage to score, Chester Heights had an answer. By Andi’s count, ten different players scored in the first half. It was 32–10 at halftime.
“Thirty-two points in twelve minutes?” Coach Josephson said when they got to the locker room. “You call that playing defense? I’m embarrassed for you.”
Andi almost laughed. If anyone should be embarrassed, it should be the coach, who clearly had no clue how to attack a zone press. Maybe she could go out and buy a book on it over the weekend.
“We could beat this team if we didn’t have a group that quit on us because their feelings got hurt,” the coach added.
Andi didn’t think Merion would be winning if she and her teammates had all been playing, but there was no doubt the game would be more competitive. There was no doubt she and Maria would have a much better chance of breaking the press than anyone else in a Merion uniform. She felt a little bit guilty. Apparently, she wasn’t the only one.
“Coach, I think we’d all be willing to play in the second half,” Maria said. “If our teammates want us to play.”
“No,” Coach Josephson said. “You quit on these girls and…”
“And those girls should be the ones who decide,” Coach Axelson said, interrupting.
Andi was shocked. So too was Coach Josephson, who stared at her assistant as if she’d seen a ghost.
Given the brief opening, Coach Axelson turned to Bronson. “Jamie, you’re the captain, what do you think?”
Andi was certain Bronson would stick with Coach Josephson. To her surprise, she turned to the other players. “I think we give them another chance,” she said. “What do the rest of you think?”
For a moment, nobody moved or said anything. Then Randi Eisen, one of the team neutrals, said, “I think we need all the help we can get.”
Others nodded in agreement. But then, Jenny Mearns looked at Bronson and said: “They’re the reason we’re so far behind. I say, let ’em sit.”
Bronson nodded. “Let’s vote on it,” she said. “All in favor of letting them play, raise your hands. Three hands went up right away: Eisen, Brooke Jensen, and Ronnie Bonilla—who, along with Debbie Lee, were the neutrals on the team. With Lee one of the benched five, that was going to leave them one vote short.
Except to Andi’s surprise—again—a fourth hand went up: Bronson’s. The other three players, who hadn’t raised their hands, stared at their leader in surprise for a few seconds. Then, all of them raised their hands—Mearns last.
Bronson turned to Coach Josephson.
“Coach, it’s unanimous. We’d all like to have our whole team on the court for the second half.”
For a moment, Josephson said nothing: standing with her hands on hips, staring, first at Bronson, then at Coach Axelson.
“Okay then, if that’s the will of the team, I’ll go along with it.” She stood up straight and pointed a finger in the direction of those who hadn’t played the first half: “This isn’t over, though. Your pregame behavior was unacceptable.”
Someone was knocking on the door. “Two minutes, Coach,” a voice said. “We need your team out here.”
“Let’s go, girls,” Coach Axelson said, and headed for the door.
Andi found herself next to Bronson as they all went up the steps from the locker room to the floor.
“Thanks, Jamie,” she said.
“Don’t think I did it because I like any of you,” Bronson said.
“Never crossed my mind,” Andi answered.