Shots on Goal (15 page)
Corupa said that he did not instruct Herbert to leave his goal untended, but lauded his goalkeeper’s action. “Herbie’s always been a quick thinker. I was so intent on watching the corner kick that I didn’t even see him coming. I don’t know if anybody saw him.”
Austin did, obviously, placing the ball perfectly for Herbert’s last-second heroics.
“The ball was there; all I had to do was hit it,” said
Herbert, who added that the 100-yard dash down the field was “probably the hardest I ever sprinted in my life. I figured it was now or never.”
Greenfield had needed only a tie to wrap up the league title. The Mountaineers are hopeful that they’ll receive an at-large bid to the playoffs.
“We just have to sit and wait,” said Greenfield coach Artie Nolan. “You have to hand it to Sturbridge. They came out of nowhere this year and they gutted it out. They deserve it.”
Austin had scored Sturbridge’s first goal in the opening quarter, and Greenfield’s Derek Masada tied the game just before the half. Greenfield appeared to have the tie in hand until a late flurry by Sturbridge. Greenfield goalie Vinnie Orr made three spectacular saves in the final seconds before Herbert’s header.
“We never quit,” said Herbert, who kept the Sturbridge bus waiting about ten minutes to depart as he dealt with what he dubbed “the media circus” (two daily newspapers and two weeklies covered the game; Herbert admitted that he’d never been interviewed before).
“We took a pounding last year, but we always knew we’d be OK,” he said. “We started winning some this season and just kept taking it up a notch, getting more intense. We walked in here today knowing that if there was any way to win this thing, we would find it.”
BIGGER STEPS
Monday night. Same guys on the bench: Herbie, Rico, me.
Joey and Hernandez will be along in a while.
We play at Hazleton on Thursday in the first round of the districts. Are we the same guys we were before the Greenfield game? Yes and no. I suppose we’ll never really be the same.
I am proud but humbled. This was a great big step for us, but there are bigger ones ahead. I’ve got a lot of years of soccer still to play.
Footstepper lopes by on the other side of the street, moving quickly and silent. Going I don’t know where.
Tommy drives past and hits the horn once. I put up my fist in a wave. There’s a touch of winter in the air; our autumns don’t last very long.
I stand and look down Main Street. There’s a group of girls about a block away, mostly juniors, probably out of my league. Staci is there, the one who showed up at the Octoberfest and busted my chops about Eileen. Her friend Dana, too. I think about them sometimes.
Maybe I’ll wander over there. They’re laughing, having a good time. Maybe I’ll walk over and say hello.
I haven’t learned a damn thing, I suppose. But I guess I’m ready. Ready for something.
Ready for whatever might come next.
Special acknowledgment to Peter Dykstra, who came up with the idea of a one-hundred-person census, and actually carried the task to its stated conclusion. Unlike in this book, where the tallying takes several weeks, the town we grew up in provided all one hundred candidates during a single evening in the mid–1970s.
R
ICH
W
ALLACE
, the author of
Wrestling Sturbridge
and
Playing Without the Ball
, grew up in a small New Jersey town where sports were a way of life. He began writing in high school, keeping journals on the highs and lows of his life. Since then he’s worked as a sportswriter, a news editor, and currently as the coordinating editor of
Highlights
magazine. As the father of two sons, he coaches a variety of youth sports, including soccer. Mr. Wallace lives in Honesdale, Pennsylvania.
ALSO AVAILABLE:
WRESTLING STURBRIDGE
RICH WALLACE
HERE’S THE DEAL
.
I’m stuck in Sturbridge, Pennsylvania, where civic pride revolves around the high school wrestling team and the future is as bright as the inside of the cinder-block factory where our dads work. And where their dads worked. And where I won’t ever work. Not if I can help it.
I’m the second-best 135-pound wrestler in school, behind Al—the first-best 135-pound wrestler in the state. But I want to be state champion as badly as he does, maybe even more. I just haven’t figured out how to do it.
I tell myself that I will find the way. I think my whole life depends on it.
“A real winner.”
—
Publishers Weekly
, Starred
“An excellent, understated first novel.… Like Ben, whose voice is so strong and clear here, Wallace weighs his words carefully, making every one count.”
—
Booklist
, Starred
“There are only a few contemporary writers who can hit the mark with teenage boys, and Rich Wallace seems likely to join that group.”
—
Chicago Tribune
An ALA Top Ten Best Book for Young Adults
An ALA Quick Pick for Young Adults
ALSO AVAILABLE:
LOSING IS NOT AN OPTION
RICH WALLACE
RON IS A RUTHLESS COMPETITOR
.
But he’s a keen observer, too. He watches his summer-league basketball team—five guys trying to fit together on the court. He watches Dawn on the dance floor, and that tiny star tattoo on her shoulder. He watches Darby run, her legs all sweat and muscle. He watches his dad move in with his grandmother, and make do.
But he’s more than a watcher: he’s a hustler on the court, a poker player, a rule breaker, a poet, and a take-no-prisoners competitor on the track.
In nine interwoven stories, award-winning author Rich Wallace brings a small-town high school to life through the sharp, spare voice—and the heart-pounding defeats and triumphs—of an athlete.
“This collection of short stories by a master writer of edgy sports fiction follows a teen and the people he knows through growing up and competing in, among other things, basketball, running, and life.”
—
School Library Journal
