The Final Tournament ②
Yae and the others, the volleyball club, who won their first match, continued to win after that as well. And then the match that determines the prefecture representative is finally about to begin.
“Just one more win, and it will be the nationals huh……!”
“Yeah, I sure hope they win after coming this far!”
The tension of Renya, who is cheering beside me, is also rising. Just the ring of ‘nationals’ is already amazing huh!
The members of the respective teams were introduced after that. Yae was called as well, so I made sure to take pictures at that time. And then the whistle blows, and the match with the ticket to the nationals at stake began.
Both teams are on such a different level compared to the matches thus far that even an amateur can tell. In my case, I only understand that if it is amazing thus far, then it is even more amazing now though.
Nishikida-san is leveraging her tall height and sending consecutive spikes that shoot downwards. I guess she is the ace because she is scoring the most points, and she can give good tosses as well.
On the other hand, Yae is receiving a lot of the opponent’s spikes. I wonder how she can catch such powerful spikes. Furthermore, she chases after the ball that got sent flying, and doesn’t let the ball fall. Libero specialises in defence; it feels like I have a good grasp of that.
The other members of our high school are also doing very well. Defending against the opponent’s spikes with their blocks, scoring points with their powerful serves.
With that being said, their opponent is also a team that managed to advance all the way to the finals. They are overcoming the attacks on our side, retaliating, and snatching the points. I suppose a match like this is exactly what they call going neck to neck.
“One more point! Then they can bring it into a deuce!”
“Please do your best!”
And then the final set, the opponent reached match point first. But if they take it here, then nobody knows who will win or lose yet. Our cheers become heated as well.
The fated one point that started from the opponent’s serve. The fast attack from a beautiful receive was picked up by the opponent. But because the receive wasn’t good, it is taking the opponent their all to return it.
It is our attack again. Nishikida-san smashes the toss, that went up high, into the opponent’s court. The opponent somehow slightly touched the ball that was struck and avoided the block, and the ball bounces back and returns to our court.
“Behind!!”
Yae, who had already started returning before Nishikida-san shouts. She dives towards the ball and extends her arms. But Yae and the others who had congregated in front were a step short of the ball that returned, and it ended up narrowly falling inside our court.
The sound of the blowing whistle. The flipped scoreboard. In contrast to the opponent players and their supporters that explode in happiness, nobody even makes a sound on this side.
Yae and Nishikida-san, the girl volleyball club’s last tournament, brought its curtains down in the form of a narrow defeat.
