Read Online Sabotage Season by Alex Morgan - Free Book Online Page B

half and was pretty fresh; Jade, who normally played defense; and Taylor. Anjali, Sarah, and Giselle played defense, and Coach kept me, Jessi, and Brianna as forwards. Emma was exhausted from defending so many goals, so Coach put Zarine on the goal. This made me a little bit nervous until I remembered how well Zarine had performed during the shoot-out drill.
    Frida marched up to me and saluted. “I failed in my mission, Colonel,” she said, hanging her head. “It’s up to you now to keep the base safe. The fate of the world is in your hands.”
    â€œYou can count on me,” I said in my best serious voice, but I wasn’t an actress like Frida, and I started cracking up.
    It might have seemed like a small change to add one more player to the midfield, but it was exactly what weneeded to recover. The Roses had a much harder time getting past our midfielders, and we got a lot more passes from the midfielders than before.
    The first one came from Maya to Jessi, who zipped past a Roses defender and sent the ball wailing over the goalie’s head. We had scored—in the first minute of the half!
    Maya and Jessi high-fived.
    â€œNice pass!” Jessi said.
    Maya grinned. “Nice goal!”
    Sometimes it amazed me how things could turn around when all seemed hopeless. Once you got momentum going, it raised the energy level of the whole team. Taylor intercepted a pass from one of the Roses midfielders and sent it my way. I had to chase it a little bit, but once I was on it, I kept the ball close. All three of the Roses defenders ran up to stop me, so I quickly looked to my right and saw I had a clear path to Jessi; I sent her a lateral pass, and luckily, she saw it coming. She stopped the ball and then charged forward as the Roses defenders scrambled to block her.
    Whoosh! She sent another ball sailing over the goalie’s head.
    I ran up and slapped her hand. “You are on fire!” I told her, and Jessi grinned.
    I scored a goal after that, and Brianna scored one too, making it Kicks 4, Roses 2. During one weak moment in the Kicks’ defense, a Roses midfielder made an amazingdrive down the side of the field and sent a ball whizzing into the corner of the goal, out of Zarine’s reach. But that was the Roses’ last point. We ended the game 4–3 and lined up to shake the hands of the Roses.
    When I got to the end of the line, the captain smiled at me. She was a tall girl who wore her hair in a ponytail.
    â€œThanks for being nice about it,” she said. “When we played the Rams, they didn’t even shake our hands. They pretended to, but then they pulled their hands away at the last second.”
    â€œReally?” I asked.
    She nodded. “I know. Rude, right? Their captain, Jamie, is the worst one. She fouled me, like, three times.”
    I jogged back to the sideline, shaking my head. We still hadn’t faced the Rams yet, and I wasn’t looking forward to it.
    â€œGreat game, everybody!” Coach Flores called out.
    â€œShe means ‘great second half,’ ” Emma said as we gathered up our equipment. “I thought we were going to lose this one.”
    â€œYou did an amazing job in the first half,” I told her. “You let only two goals past you. That made it easier for us to catch up.”
    Emma grinned. “Thanks!”
    After a brief talk from Coach we left the field. Cody and Steven were hanging out by the fence, so we had to walk past them, and I couldn’t help wondering if they had put themselves there on purpose.
    Steven smiled at me again. “Good game.”
    â€œThanks,” I replied, and suddenly all I could think about was Kara singing, “Devin and Steven.” I could feel my cheeks get warm.
    â€œThat was a little crazy there in the beginning,” Cody remarked. “Leaving your midfield open like that.”
    I blushed even harder; the whole thing had been kind of embarrassing.