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After several hours of travel, we finally arrived at the Xingtai train station. After getting off the train, I took a deep breath; the air in Xingtai was not as fresh as that in Cangzhou. "Coach, are those people holding signs up ahead the team from Xingtai here to welcome us?" I asked, noticing a few middle-aged men holding signs that read "Yulin High School." Teacher Qiu nodded, "Yes, it should be. Let's go over." We walked towards them, and our team followed closely behind.
"Are you Coach Qiu? We are from the Sports Bureau of Xingtai City. This competition is being held together by Cangzhou and Xingtai," said a chubby man. Teacher Qiu smiled and extended his hand, "Yes, I am Qiu Yong, and this is our team leader Puying." He pointed to Teacher Pu and shook hands with the others. It seemed that the Xingtai delegation was quite warm and hospitable. Let's take a look at the scenery of our fellow province's brother city, Xingtai. However, honestly, it really can't compare to Beijing.
According to the schedule, we would first compete against Yueli High School and then face Yuce High School back-to-back. After arriving at noon and resting for a bit, we had to get ready for the match; the time arrangement was indeed very tight. After dropping off our things at the hotel, we headed straight to the locker room of Yueli High School's gymnasium to prepare for battle. The scale of Yueli High School was slightly larger than ours at Yulin, and their overall planning was somewhat better. Upon entering the gymnasium, I noticed that their gym was not as spacious as ours; by my estimation, their spectator seating was one or two rows shorter than ours. It felt quite cramped. The opposing players were warming up; they all looked energetic and almost all were handsome guys. When they saw us enter the gym, they glanced over but quickly returned to their training; they were indeed quite meticulous.
Once we entered the locker room and closed the door, all team members gathered together to discuss tactics.
"From what I've seen in training, Yueli High School's teaching quality is quite strict. As the saying goes, 'strict teachers produce excellent students,' so their fundamentals should be solid and not to be underestimated," Teacher Qiu began analyzing the opponent's characteristics with his professional insight. "Coach, their players seem to have good playing styles," Li Kanglin remarked. Ouyang immediately interrupted him: "Don't jump to conclusions too early; they could very well be smiling tigers." I shook my head helplessly; Ouyang must have watched too much of Young Bao Qing Tian. Where would there be so many smiling tigers? This is a formal team, not a street basketball squad; they are a well-educated and high-quality group that cannot be compared to scoundrels like Fantasi and Celtics. After a brief deployment discussion, we all raised our hands together and shouted: "Let's go!" Then we walked out of the locker room.
As we stepped onto the court following the referee's whistle, we slowly walked onto the floor with our starting lineup still consisting of me, Ouyang, A Fei, Tu Lei, and Li Kanglin as key players.
The referee designated A Fei to jump against the opposing forward for tip-off. A Fei approached while facing an opponent who stood about 1.85 meters tall. The referee tossed the ball high into the air; both A Fei and the opposing forward jumped up frantically for it. In the end, the ball was tapped to their Point Guard who charged towards our basket with control of the ball. I sprinted from behind and swatted it away forcefully; it flew out of bounds almost into the spectator area—thankfully there were no spectators since students were in class at that time. A Fei and Ouyang ran over to high-five me; I didn't know why I suddenly felt like a monster after that block—it was incredibly satisfying!
The opponent continued with an inbound pass; their Point Guard slowly crossed half-court before passing it to a forward who reached for a jump shot at the free-throw line when A Fei intercepted it from the side and initiated a fast break. Li Kanglin charged towards the basket and leaped high while A Fei threw a perfect alley-oop pass—beautiful! From this offensive play, I could see that after more than two years of teamwork, our coordination had truly reached an extraordinary level; we had undergone a qualitative transformation.
Yueli High School's fundamentals were solid enough but their skills were rather mediocre. After one full quarter of play, our starting five had already taken a ten-point lead over them. As we walked off the court, Teacher Qiu high-fived each of us one by one: "Team members, your playing style has been particularly aggressive today! I even have an illusion that you’ve surpassed Zhongqi and Yan Bing’s golden era! You’ve injected new energy into this team..." Teacher Qiu praised us appreciatively. While I felt happy about this praise, there was also a hint of melancholy—I realized we were already in our third year; we had reached the end of our high school journey. This year was our last chance and my first real opportunity to lead a team in pursuit of victory—let's go!
In the second quarter, Teacher Qiu gave opportunities for those role players to step onto the court. I led Liu Xiao, Wei Weiwei, Ling Chen, and Lu Yinghao onto the court as role players and realized that I was indeed irreplaceable within this entire team; aside from me at point guard position, there was no one else capable of taking on such responsibility.
In this second quarter our offensive momentum slightly weakened but we still didn’t allow Yueli High School any advantage whatsoever. Lu Yinghao dominated under the basket during this quarter; he grabbed rebounds like crazy for us which allowed us to control over seventy percent of them. I believe that with this remarkable performance in today’s game, Lu Yinghao and Li Kanglin will surely stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Bing Ge and Zhang Ruizhi! Liu Xiao and Wei Weiwei also performed admirably filling in for A Fei and Ouyang’s absence effectively. With Liu Xiao's buzzer-beater three-pointer hitting just before halftime ended with a score of 65-55 in our favor—we still led them by eight points going into halftime.
The players from Yueli High School rushed ahead into the corridor leading to their locker room while their coach walked calmly at the back of their team without any rush—this coach seemed quite composed! We followed closely behind into our locker room where this match had been exhilarating with morale soaring high; two consecutive victories belong only to Yulin!
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