Chapter 173 New Game Style 2
For Jake they did not even have to ask, it was obvious that he would fit into a strong team and would play as a starter in everyone"s mind after they asked more sensitive questions as if someone would become a pro.
When they entered high school all they hoped was to play at university and stop playing after graduating, but after winning the national champions.h.i.+p and being able to win for the second time some began to dream.
Harrison and Carter had already decided to stop after college but David was still in doubt, he knew he could play well, so maybe after another five years when the university finished he had a chance to enter the NBA.
Or he could even play professionally in other countries in Europe, the important thing was that he loved basketball and wanted to be professional, Mark always thought about stopping playing after finis.h.i.+ng university.
Before, he never doubted he would stop playing, but now he was 1.92 in height and still growing, and last year he had made great games and received invitations to chat with college coaches who were considered strong in basketball.
So he began to think just like his friends that could become a pro, playing in the NBA did not seem difficult now, just like David he would leave to decide in a few more years, again no one even needed to hear from Jake to know that he could be a professional.
After that everyone left and Jake got up to pay the bill, Lucas had stayed behind because he wanted to talk to Jake privately, after Jake paid and left Lucas came over to talk to him.
"Hi, Lucas, what happened to you waiting for me here?"
"I was a little embarra.s.sed to speak in front of others, but I want you to know that I started playing after seeing you playing in the national high school champions.h.i.+p final in your last year that you won."
"Before I even played, but as I was very small I did not think I had a chance and I even thought about moving to another sport."
"But I saw you playing very well and even being one of the smallest of the team, so I thought I might as well now I ended up growing up and I was lucky to start before I could play now."
"Cool to know about this Lucas, I hope you keep playing well this way."
"I"m going, I want our team to continue winning even after you graduate, and Nathan is also very much your fan, but he"s very shy and will not have the guts to say, I"m going to go bye."
After hearing this Jake was very happy, it is good to know that new players started playing inspired by him, even more, players like Lucas and Nathan who were so skillful.
The next day Jake asked Oliver to help him buy a new car and also get some cell phones for him, it was important to have this so he could talk to his mother even if the signal in town was not very good yet.
Jake was still waiting for Emily to organize the reports on how his investments were going these last few years, Jake wanted to invest again, after all, that was when he could make more money.
At that time the computers were still not much used, mainly because it was difficult to save and to show the recorded data, so Emily was still doing everything at hand in some reports.
Jake was still doing his training almost every day at the school"s training grounds, as it was a little over a month before the Chicago marathon he would have to start preparing for the race.
After a few months running 50km almost every day his body was much more prepared and his stamina had increased a bit too, so it was time to increase the intensity of training.
First Jake started running 10km in 35 minutes, yet after the end of the training day he was not quite married even though he had run 50km in 175 minutes, so he went running 10km in 30 minutes which would be enough for him. he wins a race of less difficulty.
But when he was about 38 km Jake started to tire and saw that he could not so he ate a bar of stamina and regained his energy as much as he relaxed his muscles a little, so he can run the 50 km in 150 minutes.
With that time he could win the race and his muscles were not hurting after the race, Jake already hoped he could not run the 42.195 without eating the stamina bar, but he got quite close to it.
Another 6 months of training and he could get, the problem was that he would have to run below the 130 minutes to be sure to win, if he could run in 125 minutes he would be sure of the win.
Just as he would have to cheat this year and run eating the energy bar to win he could eat the stamina bar after the 35 km and in the last few km, he could increase the speed as he would be with the energy recovered.
Jake tried to do it the other day and saw that it was possible, but he had to see it on the day because running on the road was different from running on a race track, there could be some climbs that would affect his pace.
Even so now he was much more confident that he could do this, he felt he was much closer to his dream of getting a gold medal in the Olympics, after a few more months he could guarantee that his stamina and agility would increase further, which would make it easier to win than now.
During the week Jake went back to the restaurant near dinner time, his mother and Anna congratulated him on winning the first regional champions.h.i.+p game, Eva was not so anxious about the game because she was busy at the restaurant.
In addition, this was already the fourth regional champions.h.i.+p of Jake and he always won in the end, so until the national champions.h.i.+p games Eva would be much quieter with the other games in the year, she did not know that Jake had already ordered a phone for him and for her so Eva could know the outcome of the games and other things.
After seeing that things were okay again he continued his double training the week, he was training for both basketball and marathon, and both pieces of training helped him get stronger in both sports.
In the training of the basketball team after that day everyone left together the whole group became much more united, yet three groups were naturally formed, Jake was more with Mark and Lucas and the three became much more friends.
David got on well with Jake as well, but he was more into Harrison because his team-place spots were at risk, and Carter was more with Nathan, only Jake and Mark were everyone"s friends, the others had some disagreements between them at times.
Lucas always wanted to learn something from Jake and was very excited and honest that he was the kind of people Jake liked to make friends with, so Jake did not mind teaching Lucas what he knew he could only do so well after hundreds of games of experience in the s.p.a.ce of imagination training.
Jake and Mark got much closer together after Jake started doing several training sessions with Mark, from training to play in the Center"s position and Alley-oop between several plays they trained together.
A lot was said until Mark improved a lot last year by training longer than the others with Jake, Coach Mike was the one who was happier with all this, after all in this new style of game of the team they had to have enough entourage so that they did not have many turnovers in the plays.
So after a few more days finally came the day of the second game of the Elite team in the regional champions.h.i.+p, Jake woke up early and went down to eat breakfast prepared by Eva.
After Jake left and went to the scene of the game, when he arrived there almost everyone had arrived as always, the coach was going through a few plays with Lucas and Nathan who would start playing today again.
Jake went to talk a few more things with Mark while he waited for the beginning of the game, the opponents in this second regional champions.h.i.+p game were the Flagami team, the players featured in this team were PG Ezra and SF Colton.
Unlike the team in the first game, they did not seem to be willing to lose the game even against the Elite team, so after a few minutes the game began, Mark took possession of the ball to the Elite team.
Jake received the ball and advanced calmly to the attack, when the Elite team was all in the attacking block Jake pa.s.sed the ball to Nathan who was more open by the right, Nathan advanced until the opposing SG appeared in the defense.
So Nathan pa.s.sed the ball to Carter who went to the bottom of the court on the right of the attack to receive the ball, Carter received and already pa.s.sed to Lucas who was in the Free Throw free area, so Lucas made the mid-range shot to make the 2 points for the Elite team.
Today was Nathan and Lucas"s second game in high school and as they played in Middle School they were no longer nervous in today"s game, Ezra got the ball to start the first attack of the Flagami team.
Ezra was keeping away from Jake who had an average of 10 steals per game and pa.s.sed the ball to the SG of his team, the SG tried to pa.s.s through Nathan, but Nathan kept the distance and defended tight, so the SG pa.s.sed to Colton who stayed free to receive the ball.
Before Lucas got to the defense Colton already made the mid-range shot to make 2 points for the Flagami team and tie the game.