Fortunately for Merion, Bryn Mawr Tech’s strengths were science and math, not sports. It was the weakest team in the league. It was known to one and all as “the nerd school.”
It showed.
Jeff started at point guard and Arlow started on the bench. By the end of the first quarter, it was 19–6 and Coach C brought in five new players—Arlow among them. It really didn’t matter who played; the lead continued to build all afternoon. The final was 49–22. Coach C ordered five passes before taking a shot in the fourth quarter to keep the score down. That helped, but Bryn Mawr simply couldn’t score.
“It’ll be tougher Friday when we got to Radnor, I promise you that,” Coach C said in the locker room after the game. “We have to keep winning because Haverford’s not going to lose anytime soon since Jordan’s healthy again.”
Jeff had checked the schedule and had seen that the rematch with Haverford—it was one of the four teams Merion played twice—was in the last game of the season. They would almost certainly need to go undefeated between now and then and hope Jordan missed another game along the way if they were going to have a chance to even tie for the conference title. For now, he was happy to be 4–2—especially after the events of the last few days.
As he and Danny walked out of the locker room, Danny commented, “No media, huh? That’s a switch.”
Jeff laughed. “We’re playing sixth-grade basketball and we’re surprised there’s no media waiting for us after a game. Something’s wrong with this picture.”
Danny laughed. “Maybe,” he said, “we’ve finally got it right.”
Andi felt like she was dreaming. For the first time all year, she was playing with a group of girls she felt completely comfortable with and a coach who had no ax to grind with her—or anyone else.
The Bryn Mawr Tech girls weren’t any better than the Bryn Mawr Tech boys. By halftime, Merion led 31–9 and Andi had scored fifteen points. Coach Dunphy got everyone playing time in the second half, putting his players in a passive zone defense to give Bryn Mawr a chance to score and telling his players not to shoot any threes.
“No need to embarrass them,” he said softly during a time-out.
The final score was 53–25. It could have been far worse than that. This was one game that Andi suspected Merion could have won with Coach Josephson still in charge.
Maybe.
The bus ride back to school was unlike any other she had experienced in soccer or basketball. It was loud and celebratory and included some singing. When Coach Dunphy said he couldn’t stand one more Jonas Brothers song, they challenged him to come up with one of his own. He promptly launched into Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” and impressed them all with his ability to carry the tune.
Jeff had texted Andi to say that everyone had played, Ron Arlow had stepped down as captain after apologizing for attacking Andi in his TV interview, and they had also won easily. Maybe Andi was dreaming. It all seemed too good to be true.
Her mom was waiting for her when the bus pulled up to school.
“Quite a day,” she said. “Your dad said you did great in the courtroom.”
“Well,” Andi said, “let’s put it this way: I did better than Ms. Josephson.”
“So I heard,” her mother said. “So I heard.”
There was plenty of media coverage the next couple of days of what had happened in court. Andi was glad there had been no TV cameras allowed into the hearing because she had no need to see Ms. Josephson’s meltdown again. She did find The Caine Mutiny on Netflix and watched it on Saturday afternoon from beginning to end. Her father’s comparison of Ms. Josephson to Captain Queeg fit almost perfectly. She could almost see her rolling the steel balls in her hand.
Jeff called Saturday morning to see if she wanted to go out for a celebratory pizza. There was, he pointed out, lots to celebrate. She asked for a rain check until the following Saturday. She was exhausted from the events of the week—even though everything had turned out well. Better than well.
All of a sudden, they had gone from their season appearing to be over to feeling as if they could beat anyone they might play in the conference. They were now 4–2 with six games left and trailed just two teams—Haverford and Radnor. They would play Haverford to end the season and they had just beaten Radnor at home on Friday. A lost season had become a promising season.
Even more important, it had become fun.
Coach Dunphy had changed the lineup to start the five best players and make sure they got the most minutes, but he had managed to keep everyone involved. Those who had been starters and were now coming in off the bench didn’t mind. They were still getting playing time and the team was winning.
What’s more, the better they played, the more they proved that they had been right about Coach Josephson—certainly on the court. Of course, it was unfair to compare a sixth-grade gym teacher to a possible future Hall of Fame coach. Still, the changes he’d made weren’t that complicated and he had seen his team practice exactly once before making those changes.
Andi wasn’t surprised that she had played better once she wasn’t looking over her shoulder constantly, but she was a little surprised at how good a player Lisa Carmichael was now that she too was getting to play more minutes. Lisa had long arms and was very quick getting off her feet. She was actually a better rebounder than Eleanor, even though Eleanor was a couple of inches taller than she was.
Maria Medley was much more effective at point guard, because when her quickness forced a double-team, she had multiple choices on where to go with the ball. No longer was Eleanor the only consistent scorer on the court.
Jamie Bronson, freed of the need to try to be a second scorer, was a natural at doing the little things that needed doing: guarding the other team’s best inside player to help keep Eleanor out of foul trouble; keeping the ball alive on the boards so that Lisa or Eleanor could get to it; setting hard screens that were almost impossible to get around.
There was no doubt the seven bench players weren’t as good as the first five, but Coach Dunphy was able to spot them into the game, almost always keeping at least three starters on the floor. That way the team might dip a little bit on offense, but very little on defense. He was also a master of changing defenses. He spent almost an entire practice one day teaching the girls the art of the zone trap. That meant Merion could play man-to-man, straight zone, or trap—full-court or half-court. It became almost impossible for an opponent to get into any kind of offensive rhythm.
What had been a bad team in December became a very good team as the calendar turned to February. Andi went from dreading practice every day to looking forward to it. Basketball practice wasn’t just fun, it was a learning experience.
As they walked off the court one afternoon, Jamie threw an arm around Andi. “You know, we all owe you, Carillo,” she said. “If not for you, I think—I know—we’d have all just suffered our way through the season with Coach Josephson and figured there was nothing we could do about it. No matter how we finish up, this has been fun. Winning makes everything more fun, but it’s all been fun.”
She paused and her voice choked just a little when she said, “Thank you for that.”
Andi gave her a hug. It was amazing how far they had come since those first practices.
When she told Jeff what had happened, he laughed and said, “You could write a book about your year in the sixth grade.”
Andi nodded. “I could write two,” she answered.
“Yeah,” he said. “And just think, the basketball’s season’s not even over yet.”