Junior High Athletics Meet 3

Being given a 15 minute break by the officials I quickly picked up my bag and water bottle to sit down and quickly replenish my fluids and get a quick snack in. I got an energy bar and started to munch on it while listening to my coach.

"Make sure to take this time and replenish yourselves. If you can get a quick snack in do it but don't have too much as it can make you feel heavy."

Everyone heard and quickly gathered around making sure that they would be in top shape for our next match.

"Our final match will be against Kitagawa Daiichi and they are a solid team of players with strong offense alongside their great defense. Some special players to watch out for are their wing spiker Akira Kunimi, their middle blocker Yutaro Kindaichi and their setter Tobio Kageyama."

I tried to take a slight peak at the opposite side to see how their setter was doing. I saw him sitting on the bench by himself while his teammates seemed to try and avoid him. I saw this and took what I saw in mind.

"Their wing spiker although he doesn't stand out as much at the start his real strength lies during the late game, he seems to conserve his energy at the start and uses that saved energy in the later parts of the match so make sure not to waste all of your stamina."

"Their middle block is pretty tall so watch out as his blocking height is tall, try to maneuver around his block and if you can't try to aim for the hands so you are able to tool the ball."

"And their setter well.. you can see that he is a solid player in all aspects but try not to get caught up in his feints and the rhythm he sets. Ah yes Haruto you have something to say?"

I raised my hand and caught the attention of my coach. "If we are able to put pressure on their offense with our blocks we can disrupt the momentum of their setter and gradually put pressure on him too."

The coach raised an eyebrow and asked why I thought so."He doesn't seem to be properly using his teammates and is setting the ball how he wants it and not how his hitters want it. It's like he is playing the game entirely by himself."

"If we block one way he will try another way to get through, I believe he has the ability to always find an answer to the problems we give him but can his teammates can? I saw how his attackers have a hard time hitting with his sets causing many blunders so if we can capitalize on this we can easily rake up more points."

After I finished explaining I saw some of my teammates staring at me. They had a strange smile on their faces. Tsutomu started to show a creeped out expression.

"Haruto, did you actually come up with that plan just by seeing how the other person played? That's actually kinda scary you know. I feel slightly bad for the poor guy."

I stared blankly at Tsutomu and shrugged my shoulders. You have to use all the tools available if you want to win.

The coach smiled and said that we can try to adopt my plan while also keeping in mind the important information that they talked about before. The ref stood on the court and called for the captains of each team. I stood up and went to the ref to do the coin toss.

***

"Ohh the finals are about to start! The Rising Ace against the King of the Court I wonder who will come up on top."

"Yeah, this match will be fun to watch. Who do you think will win Daichi-san?"

"Well seeing how both of their teams play I might say that Takaoka Gakuen will win." Suga who asked the question turned to Daichi to ask him to explain further.

"Takaoka Gakuen plays as a team that can connect well together. Although they have Watanabe as their main offense they can incorporate many other plays that can be tricky to defend against. They don't have very tall players like Kitagawa Daiichi but they have a solid defense that can pick up hits that go off their blocks."

"Compared to Takaoka Gakuen, Kitagawa Daiichi have their strong hitters and blockers comparable to Takaoka and they have a better setter on top of that but.. I feel like the setter doesn't want to use the players around him and it seems like he's playing the game all by himself."

"But anything can happen in a game so let's just watch and see what happens."

Tanaka and Suga nodded and proceeded to put their focus on the court. A few rows beside them sat a short kid with messy orange hair paying his full attention to the match in front of him.

***

This time we got served so Tsutomu was behind the line and started to do his routine. The ref whistled indicating that the match had begun. Tsutomu let out a jump serve and it quickly went towards their libero. I was able to hear him slightly click his tongue. The ball was perfectly passed towards the setter and I looked at their hitters to see who would start to move.

Their middle started to run up seemingly going for a quick. I stopped for a bit to look at his current options that he can set to. Kageyama jumped looking to do a jump set and I looked at his arms and fingers. They were slightly forward and bent. I was able to read his body language showing that he will set to his outside hitter instead of his middle. As he finally touched the ball as I predicted he set it outside.

I shifted my feet and went slightly back to prepare for a cut shot or the ball to go in my direction after hitting the block. The opponents outside hit our block and the ball ricochet towards me. I passed the ball to our setter and ran backwards preparing to attack. The setter volleyed a normal set for me and I began my approach. Seeing that I'm faced with triple blockers I jump, while in the air the whole court enters my vision I can gradually see their blocker block my way and I try to find an opening between their blocks. Between the middle and the outside hitter there was a slight gap as the outside hitter wasn't able to close the block tightly. Although there was a gap I wouldn't be able to hit the ball through it as it will be caught in the block.

Deciding what to do I chose to hit it towards a deep corner. I swung and it went towards the right corner. The player wasn't able to receive the ball properly as he moved too far forward. Their formation was broken, as Kageyama tried to fix the pass and we were able to block the hitter he set to.

"Nice hit!" "You really aimed it at that corner haha!"

We smiled and high-fived each other. After huddling for a bit Tsutomu returned to the service line and prepared his second serve. Putting my hands behind my head I look at the other side of the court. I was able to see Kageyama slightly frowning.

Well let's continue playing shall we.

***

Well we won the finals 2-1. We were able to take the first set and I was able to see that the plan of adding pressure on Kageyama started to gradually work. After taking the first set we started to make some blunders such as falling for some of his feints and making us follow his tempo that he set. In the final set we started to get used to his game style and began to block or at least soften our opponents hits.

As I predicted he started to make mistakes such as setting the ball too fast in order to get past out blocks. We finished the set before he was able to release his frustrations which I think was a good thing at least.

Packing my bags I told my coach that I will go home my own way and I said goodbye to Tsutomu and my teammates. Putting my medal and finals MVP in my bag I went to look for shrimpy as I said I'll treat him to ramen. Leaving the entrance I saw him standing on one of the top steps on the stairs.

"If you're the reigning "King" of the court then.. I will overthrow you from your title and I'll be the one who will stand on the court the longest!!"

Kageyama stared at him "The only ones who stand on the court are the strongest.. So if you want to win, try and grow stronger!" Moving his eyes away from shrimpy and meeting mine "But I think there are bigger walls than me for you to overcome if you want to be the strongest." After saying that he turned away and left.

Seeing him look behind him shrimpy turned around and saw me. I gave a weary smile towards him. I have never seen so much snot and tears come out of a person before it was honestly amazing..

"Come on, I know a great ramen place that we can eat from."

***

And Haruto's Junior High era has ended *clapclap*. I wanted to write this chapter and practice describing how a volleyball match can be but it really is challenging putting in the details… Anyways you can expect to see the start of canon and you might be able to see the appearance of a sweet angel soon *wink*. Until next time Peace!