Luckily, we didn't have to do this all practice. Unluckily, Drew had more 'fun' drills up his sleeve. After twenty or so runs up the hill, and countless burpees, he had us jog to the gymnasium.
The gym was a two-story building with boys and girls locker rooms on the first floor, along with some coaching offices and the athletic director's office and the trainers room. The second floor was a basketball court or volleyball court with electronic scoreboards and shot clocks and could be configured to use two smaller practice courts with a divider. I had only been in the gym for health class, but never had a reason to go in besides that. The varsity baseball team had our own club room by our dugout so it was pointless to use the gym's lockers downstairs.
"Why are we at the gym?" Noah huffed, looking a hundred times better than me, who had his hands on his knees, just thankful for a break.
Drew grinned. "More running, of course." I groaned. "Now, now. We're changing it up. This time we'll include stairs and I'll switch up the way you have to go up them."
"The way we go up them..?" Noah asked. "Are there different ways to go upstairs? Do you mean the pace? Like a slow walk to a fast run up the stairs?"
Drew laughed. "Look at you, not even being creative. This is why you don't progress much with training on your own. You have to think outside of the box. For now, you'll take the stairs, one at a time. So one foot on each step. Then you'll run across the length of the gym, and go down the other set of stairs, one at a time. Then run the length of the lower level to get back to the original set of stairs. Second time around, I'll have you skip every other stair, so two at a time. Then you'll come down the same way."
"Isn't that dangerous?" I gasped out, finally standing upright.
Drew shook his head. "There's danger in everything. But if you're scared that you might fall down the stairs then I'll let you come down normally. Deal?"
I nodded. My legs aren't long enough to skip stairs going down.
"Okay. Lineup. Noah in front. Jake right behind him. Noah, if Jake catches you, then I know you aren't trying hard enough. Jake, if Noah is able to lap you, then maybe you should be doing more training like this." Drew commanded.
We lined up accordingly and started the drill. The first time up and down was easy and simple. The second time, made my calves and quads burn. Then drew became more imaginative by having us hop up and down the stairs. Then he yelled for us to hop on one leg. The next time was only for the other leg. Then he thought we should hop backwards to work the hamstrings as well. This went on until the end of normal practice time.
Drew clapped us on the back for a job well done and said we could walk back down to the field by ourselves since he had no need to go back down with us.
I dragged my feet and slowly followed Noah down. "I think I'll need an ice bath tonight."
Noah groaned. "Me too. Who knew Drew could be so sadistic? We definitely couldn't play in tomorrow's game with our muscles all beaten up like this."
I nodded.
"So unlucky. I thought we might have a chance since Coach only stated that we wouldn't start. But now…we won't get to play at all. Ugh. If the team loses without us and we have to run 100 laps each, please just bury me."
I let out a light laugh. And then stopped. I leaned close to Noah and whispered, "Do you really want them to win without us? Wouldn't that mean that they don't need us?"
Noah laughed and threw his arm around me. "You're becoming a true competitor now, Jakey. You want to win and want the team to win. But you want to be the reason why they win. It's a hard emotion to fight off."
"Emotion?"
"It's pride. You have pride in what you do." Noah sighed. "I want the team to think that they can't win without me too, but that's being conceited. Ideally if they win 1-0, I'd be satisfied. Or 2-1. Or 3-2. As long it's a one-run game, I can claim that we would have won more with us in the lineup. Or if the other team gets a few too many runs, I can say that my defense could have prevented some runs."
I nodded. I see. We want them to win, but not by a lot. We want them to need us. "What do you think tomorrow will be like?"
"They're playing Katella…" Noah sighed.
That sounds familiar. "Have we heard of them before?"
"Right before game two of the tournament. Pleasant Valley played them in game one…and mercy ruled them." Noah sighed. "And we had mercy ruled Pleasant Valley. So the chances of tomorrow's game being a close one? Zero." Oh.
We arrived at our field and started to pick up our pace to join the team, muscles protesting in anger. The team was circled around Coach once more as he was talking about tomorrow's game.
"I don't want to see any errors tomorrow. Katella may not be up to our level, but that doesn't mean I want to see anyone slacking off." Coach spoke. "Any sign of someone taking it easy, I'll pull you and put in a pitcher if I have to."
"We'll play anywhere!" The twins said in unison, raising a hand each.
"Of course, since you can't have the mound." Garret laughed at their enthusiasm to play a field position.
Dave rolled his eyes. Kyle, on the other hand, raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Trying to act like an ace? Remind me, who has the perfect game?"
The team started to laugh.
"Settle down." Coach intervened before Garret could come up with a rebuttal. He looked around. "All of you go straight home and prepare for tomorrow. Eat. Shower. Sleep. Tomorrow's game is at 10am. Warmups start at 9am. Be here no later than 8:30am. Zeke, wrap it up."
Coach joined the other coaches and they walked away, leaving Zeke at the center of attention. Zeke looked around at everyone of us. "There isn't much to say. Tomorrow we'll win. No excuses." Man of few words. "Bring it in. Win on three." The team jumped to their feet and put their hands in with Zeke. Noah and I stood on the edges, unable to even get our hands in the actual pile. "One. Two. Three-"
"WIN!" The team said simultaneously. Then we scattered. Some were in hurry to get home, running straight to the club room. Some left equipment in the dugout. The team came together for practice and games, but was always quick to dividing up to little groups once done. It was interesting.
"Stop zoning out." Noah nudged me. "Let's go home and beg dad to prepare an ice bath after dinner. I'm so hungry."
I nodded and we got moving. The team all divided up, but at least Noah never leaves. In math, he's a constant, a never-changing variable. A fixed or well-defined number. To me, that's also a comfort.
