Bab 45: Kyōsen Private Middle School VS Yurisei Middle School; First Half
「Nationals (Junior High Division), Day 1, Group Stage, Round 2: Round-robin」
The day one of the Nationals Group Stage is really one of those bad days for the team of Kyōsen Private Middle School. Right after their match with Yako Academy, Kyōsen have to face Yurisei Middle School in their next match after a few minutes of break.
Since coach Chu Lin wanted to run a rotation during this earlier phase of the Nationals, they will have to face a tough challenge in this upcoming match. In the side of Yurisei, a hungry fox is out for blood as he is totally looking for a win against Kyōsen.
Yurisei is a team that honestly isn't there yet in terms of overall categories compared to other teams. However, they win by a mile if it's just a match against their team's ace and the opposing team's ace. This ace player of theirs carried his team all throughout the hellish preliminaries in Chūbu, into this Nationals.
Of course, the starters of Kyōsen team all heard of this news from their coach's mouth just the other day. In this match, their team will be running the same starter five during the first half and then rotate between players after that.
However, just to be safe, Chu Lin told Seiji to guard Yurisei's ace until the end of the match. His job this match is score points and choke the opposition's ace in defense.
According to the data Neko have on that ace, his name seems to be Rukawa Kaede, a freshman just like Seiji. Like him, Rukawa is also a pretty well rounded player who excels in both the offensive and defensive end of the game.
What separate Rukawa and Seiji apart is that, albeit efficient in scoring, Rukuwa often takes a shot that he really didn't have to. Most of the times, his shot selection is great.
However, there would be a time when he would force a shot that clearly is a tough one to make. Other than that, you could clearly see in his play style that he is a DeAndre Paul inspired player who loves to run the hero ball in the offense.
That's why, as long as Seiji could keep him at bay, Kyōsen could take this team on anytime.
※・※・※・※
"The match between Kyōsen Private Middle School and Yurisei Middle School will now begin! Bow!"
"""Let's have a good game!"""
At the centerline, every starter players of each team is lined up, facing each other after bowing. Then, after that, everyone went into position, waiting for the tipoff.
In this tipoff, it's as clear as day that Akagi will win this against the 185cm center of Yurisei, everybody knows that. That's why, when the tipoff began with the referee throwing the ball in the air, everyone watched where Akagi will pass the ball.
At the time when Akagi won the tipoff and passed the ball to his team's point guard, Izuki, they didn't expect someone to cut the pass. Both the captain and the point guard clearly didn't expect the opposition to have someone who's almost as quick as Wakamatsu in terms of just pure speed.
However, this player clearly isn't as fast as Seiji.
"I'll go and defend—"
Seiji said as he immediately caught up to the player, trailing behind him.
Before Seiji could get to him, he saw the opposition decisively took a midrange jumpshot. Since the enemy team had the headstart, apart from Seiji, his team couldn't a close the gap faster to stop Yurisei from taking the first points of the game.
That play was seriously careless of them. Their coach just reminded them not to underestimate anyone but that clearly showed in the earlier play. They were too lax.
Seiji's eyes turned sharp as focused entirely on the game. No error such as early should be committed.
In order to redeem themselves from that misplay, Kyōsen went to work as they executed their offensive strategy. Just a few seconds into the shot clock, Izuki saw an opening and passed the ball with a bounce pass to a free Wakamatsu who got away from his defender after moving around the paint and using Akagi's screen to good use.
The next possession, with the ball in the hands of Yurisei's point guard, they all went for an isolation set up for their ace. With the ball on his hands, he lowered his posture and started doing some jab steps while swaying his body along with it for a few seconds, trying to sell out some fakes.
Unfortunately, Seiji didn't buy it.
Then, when he noticed that it wasn't working, Rukawa dribbled the ball calmly while standing upright.
*dang* *dang*
*dang*
*dang*
With the shot clock winding down, Rukawa have no other choice but to either pass the ball and reset or force the shot and pray to the heavens that the shot would count. Seeing that he is having a hard time passing Seiji, this ticked on Rukawa's nerves a bit so he opted to choose the second option. Take the tough shot and pray that it'll go through the hoop.
With quick movements, Rukawa went into his shooting motion and jumped back diagonally. Yes, it's a fadeaway jump.
Of course, Seiji wouldn't let him score just like that so he contested the shot and managed to slightly tip the ball after Rukawa released the ball. The ball rolled around the rim for a few seconds before it ultimately sank inside the hoop, giving Yurisei a two point lead against Kyōsen.
Before going back to defend, Rukawa didn't forget to say his piece to Seiji who just picked up the ball.
"Nice try…"
"Uhh… okay?"
Next possession, Seiji asked for the ball from Izuki just before they entered the other side of the court. With the ball on his hands, Seiji waited for Rukawa to pick him up before blatantly going into his shooting motion.
Of course, Rukawa also have something to say about this.
"Idiot, taking such a bad shot…"
Unknown to him, he didn't have the chance to block this shot. Because Seiji already have experience in using 「Eye of Odin」 and 「Balor's View」, paired with his fast learning capabilities, it's already not visible to others whether he is using these abilities or not. There's no more rings around his irises that could be seen when he is using his 「Balor's View」.
"Well, let's see if you can block this…"
Seiji is quite the petty person and he wouldn't take such a challenge lying down. With confidence oozing out of his veins, Seiji released his shot, even though Rukawa also jumped up to block him.
*swoosh*
The next second, something really surprising happened. The ball seemingly passed through Rukawa's hand and passed through the hoop with a swish.
After they landed on the ground, Seiji looked at Rukawa and said, "I told you so… You can't block it…"
This statement that felt like Seiji is just rubbing salt in his wounds made Rukawa feel angry deep inside. Thus, in the next possession, Rukawa once again tried to force a shot and got blocked by Seiji easily.
"Too predictable…"
※・※・※・※
With the two aces from both teams leading the charge in offense, the game became heated. When the game was three minutes in, with the score being 7-16 after an another amazing and unblockable three from Seiji that he shot right in front of Rukawa's face for being so arrogant and cocky, Rukawa once again asked for the ball from his team's point guard.
Rukawa's teammates weren't exactly stellar when it comes to their skills and performance this game so it could be said that they are entirely relying in Rukawa this game. They're banking on the hope that Rukawa could best Seiji when it comes to the game of basketball. However, that doesn't seem to be what's happening right now.
In the offense, Rukawa kept on avoiding Seiji who's marking him and is constantly asking for ball screens. In their play right after Seiji's three point play, Rukawa once again asked for a high screen against Seiji, with his team's power forward lending him a hand.
With that help coming to him, he managed to get an open look for a three for a brief moment. To ensure that Seiji wouldn't get a block in, with his worries being totally understandable, Rukawa took an extra mile of effort in shooting a fadeaway rather than the much easier normal pull up jumper.
It was pretty clear that, given enough time, Rukawa could come close to Mitsui in terms of skills. His high basketball IQ cane be seen by how he managed to constantly find a way to have, even though short, open looks.
As the game went on, Rukawa felt like he didn't have any breathing room as Seiji kept on choking him with his defense while he couldn't do anything against Seiji when Seiji's on the offense. The defensive stops that Seiji did to him all throughout the first quarter really hurted his offense quite a lot. Add it to the fact that his stamina is also slowly running out due to the amount of effort that he needed to put to atleast get a score in, Yurisei doesn't seem to be catching up to Kyōsen's score soon.
※・※・※・※
To be continued…
[A/N¹: I skimmed through this match. Honestly, it wouldn't be that exciting of a game since Rukawa have above average teammates in this game. Also, I would like to leave him for high school so… yeah.]
[A/N²: This game would last for only about 2 chapters.]
PERTIMBANGAN PENCIPTA 
JadePanda003
JadePanda003 As promised, there will be three chapters for this weekend. The remaining two will be posted tomorrow.
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