The 81 Point Game

• Dakin Mahony, Grade 6, Tregeagle Public School
• Short Story
• 2014

Excellence Award in the 'Write As Rain 2014' competition

We were down, 89-101. Luke passed the ball to me, I was at three point range, I had to make this shot or we wouldn’t be in the finals. I shot. The ball flew it dropped into the ring. The team cheered, I felt so great we did it we were in the finals.
As I left the court Luke, Jake and my other teammates all congratulated me for I had won the game for them. I was sure the next game wouldn’t be as close as this game, and not in a good way. They are The Taipans.
The next week was not easy; walking in the streets was difficult. Everyone would crowd me. The hardest thing was sleeping, I can’t forget all of the weight that was on my shoulders with that last shot of the game. I will never forget the rough feeling of the sweaty ball entering the grip of my hands and exiting the sure grip of my hands.
An extremely difficult week had passed and tomorrow was the day of the game. The team gathered on our home basketball court to practise, it was no ordinary training session. Jim our coach was training us to dunk and teaching us new plays. These were different to the moves we were used to. These moves were also guaranteed to earn us lots of points. I could NOT wait until tomorrow.
Today was the day. I dressed in my team uniform, a purple and yellow singlet labelled with The Eagles and baggy pants coloured purple and yellow to match the singlet. The number 24 sat on the back of my singlet along with my name. The ref came into the room and told us the game will begin in 10 minutes, we all got ready for the game.
We started and Luke did the jump ball and I successfully received the ball and passed up-court to Luke who soon put us in a 2 point lead. The team seemed to pass to me a lot and rely on me to sink the threes, this went on for the first quarter of the game where we had ended up being up by 7 points.
The score was getting closer to being even, they soon got on a 2 point lead. The ball was passed up-court to me when I was open, I jumped and dunked. The scores were even until the end of the first half. I was subbed off for Jake and wouldn’t get on until the fourth quarter.
The fourth quarter began and we were losing the game 76-67. That soon changed with me sinking threes and dunking. The end was drawing near when we were down by 2 points, the clock counted down 4, 3, 2 and 1. I sunk a three in the nick of time we won the finals! And I scored 81 points. I felt fantastic. This was the best moment of my life!