Читать книгу Rage. The Legend of "Baseball Bill" Denehy онлайн

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In the overtime period, we scored first and quickly got the ball back. Wilby called time.

Our coach, Jim Sullivan, told us, “Stay with our offense,” but when the team walked back onto the court, I called my teammates together and told them, “Listen, they’re in a zone defense. We have the ball. Let’s stay as far away from the zone as possible. Let’s just hold the ball.”

At the time, there was no shot clock in high school basketball. I thought that holding the ball was the smart way to go. The whistle blew, the ball was passed to me, and I just stood out on the perimeter, holding the basketball underneath my arm. I did this for three and a half minutes. I couldn’t believe that Wilby was staying in their zone defense. I guess they figured we’d have to do something eventually.

With only thirty seconds left in the game, Wilby changed to a man-to-man, and at that point we went to our man-to-man offense. The ball was again passed to me; I made a layup, and was fouled. When I made the free throw, we led by five, and it was enough to seal what was an incredible, improbable victory. The joy I felt was unrestrained.