Deep Zone by Tim Green

Author:Tim Green
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

Chapter Thirty-five

ONLY THE CHAMPIONSHIP GAME of the 7-on-7 Tournament would be played at the Dolphins’ stadium. The preliminary rounds were to take place at the University of Miami’s football practice fields. The practice fields had surprisingly large bleachers, and they were full. With sixty-four teams from across the country, Ty wasn’t surprised. He hopped down out of the shuttle bus Mark Bavaro had hired to transport them from the hotel to the games and scanned the crowd, looking for Thane. Then he sent a text, only to learn that his older brother hadn’t arrived yet.

Thane texted him again.

GOOD LUCK!

Ty smiled and fell in line with his teammates as they wound their way through the crowd and out onto the field, led by their coach, Mark Bavaro. The North New Jersey Raptors wore deep red jerseys with white numbers. Their opponents would be the Kansas Storm, wearing powder blue with black numbers. The kids from Kansas didn’t look that much bigger than the Raptors, but they did look fast. Ty couldn’t keep from noticing as they warmed up how quick the hands of the cornerbacks were. They practiced a press coverage against their own teammates, and their hands shot out quick as frog tongues, connecting with the wide receivers like practiced boxers, and knocking them this way and that. By the time the receivers got free from these jams, they were too late to get to where they should be for the quarterback to throw the ball.

Ty bit his lip and warmed up with his own team. The Raptors defense played very little press coverage. Instead, they played more zone defense, where defenders would drop back to preassigned spots on the field—setting up a net of sorts—then reading the quarterback’s eyes and the receivers’ patterns to break up the pass or hopefully intercept the ball. Since the Raptors defense played zone, that was mostly what Ty had practiced against the past few weeks.

Ty liked playing against zone defenses, because he could use his brains to figure out the shape of the net and then his speed to get to the open holes that always existed. Press coverage was a bit different. When a team pressed, you had to be physical at the line of scrimmage, either slapping down their hands or plowing through the blows like a battleship. Ty’s long thin arms and skinny frame weren’t really built for either one of those things.

Mark Bavaro brought them together and urged them to give it their all.

“We win this one,” the old player said, “and I’ve got a couple of tricks that’ll get us all the way to the finals. This one is tough because we haven’t seen these guys before, but if we get past them, there isn’t going to be another team we play who we won’t already have figured out. Trust me—I’ll explain later—but we’ve got to win this one, guys.”

They chanted “win” three times, then broke their huddle. The Raptors won the toss and got the ball first.

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