anwhile, far from Tsunemori, in a school near the center of Tokyo, Kyoei Gakuen also started their preparation for the third round against Tsunemori. They gathered inside a room which, unlike Tsunemori who only used a single laptop to play the video, had a large screen to show everyone without them having to swarm around it.
"So, tell once again, why do we do this?" A boy with short-spiky hair huffed, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "Have we already seen them live? Why do we need to analyze them too? They are not good enough, for God's sake! This is just wasting our ti!" He complained childishly.
"Shut up, Nitta!" Another boy who had a bigger figure scolded the first boy coldly. "You know, underestimating our enemy would be your downfall, right?"
"Yeah, yeah, I know." The boy called Nitta waved his hand casually. "You have said that so many tis in the past, yet we have never lost against such a no-na opponent like them. Would it be better to use the ti for more training?" He muttered inwardly.
The bigger boy just rolled his eyes in exasperation, yet didn't reprimand Nitta for the second ti.
Yeah, in case you were wondering, those two were the pillars of Kyoei Gakuen, the ace of the team Nitta Zaki, and the captain Atsuki Ito. As a tradition of a big team, they gathered together a few days before the ga to analyze the next opponent.
Even though Nitta complained a lot about wasting ti, he still attended the eting, knowing that if the ace didn't present, it would make the other players think they didn't take the opponent seriously, which was a big taboo in the elimination stage tournant no matter how easy their opponent was.
As for Ito, he had no complaints at all, always being a responsible captain and didn't ss around even when facing an easy opponent. Even though just like Nitta said, they had never lost against a weaker opponent, he still took every ga seriously, showing a professional attitude while giving the opposite side the respect they deserved.
Still, even he had to admit that a eting like this in the early round was not necessary, especially when he was one of the students sent by the team to observe Tsunemori's ga in the second round. While the opponent had a decent team, it was still far enough to compete against them.
"Anyway, where is Haruo-kun?" Nitta suddenly asked. "I haven't seen him for a while."
The corner of Ito's lips twitched in annoyance as he suddenly felt tired rembering his kouhai's antic. "His horoom teacher said he is taking an absence for another photoshoot."
"Again? Man, he is so lucky!" Nitta whined. "If only I have a legitimate reason to skip the eting too…" He winced when receiving Ito's glare.
Haruo was their middle blocker, and while not the best player on the team, he was definitely the most popular one here. The tall and bulky figure he had, coupled with the handso face and rare blonde hair with a cheerful personality was probably the best recipe to be a popular guy no matter where they were.
And adding to his monstrous blocking ability, it was not a brainer if a lot of volleyball-related products wanted him to endorse their product.
After waiting for a while, their coach finally arrived at the room. He was Kuniyama Saito, a young man still in his early thirties and had a youthful deanor that attracted so many girls in the school to have a crush on him. The mont he entered the room, everyone straightened their back, knowing it was ti for business.
Saito glanced around for a while before casually comnting, "So, like usual, it is only Haruo-kun who cannot join the eting, right?" Everyone snorted, knowing that there was no heat in his words and the coach was just joking to ease the atmosphere.
"Sensei, can I not join the eting too?" Nitta suddenly raised his hand, trying to test his luck.
Saito snorted, waving his hands. "In your dream, Nitta-kun." The others stiffened their laughter when they heard his response. "But since Nitta-kun didn't want to be in the eting, let's start it as soon as possible so he can continue whatever he was doing before."
Nitta rubbed his head awkwardly as he was being subjected to Saito's sarcastic remark. Still, since the coach wanted to start the eting, he went silent and didn't make another smart-ass comnt again.
"So, our opponent in the next round is Tsunemori High." Saito began explaining. "It is an old, ordinary public school in East Tokyo. They don't have a strong tradition in volleyball, with the best result they have ever achieved being the fourth place in the Tokyo tournant four years ago.
Besides that, they are just an ordinary team that usually would be eliminated in either the third or fourth round of the tournant. Last year, they even lost in the second round, forcing them to compete from the bottom again this year. So… At the first glance, they are just an ordinary team, and the third round is going to be a piece of cake for us."
All the players there straightened their backs and leaned their bodies forward, knowing that when their coach used the words 'At first glance', everything wasn't as simple as they thought it would be. And true to their thought, Saito continued, "BUT!" He raised his voice, making the players closest to him jump on their seats.
"I think we cannot underestimate them, especially considering they beat Shimoyawata in the first round. No matter how much weaker Shimoyawata is compared to last year, they are not an easy opponent to be dealt by an ordinary opponent, and I know you all can rember that too. So, don't think the next ga would be so easy, okay?"
All of them nodded solemnly, their mind recalling the mory of the tournant last year. Yeah, before all the commotions Ezaki made that caused the team to be banned for a full year, Shimoyawata had already advanced through the top 8 teams of the Tokyo tournant by beating a lot of strong opponents, and one of them was Kyoei Gakuen.
For them to lose in the first round this year, the team that beat them shouldn't be easy to deal with.
"As for their players, there are only two noticeable players that you should take note of," Saito said. "First, the middle blocker, Hirano." He pointed his fingers at the image of a player with the jersey number 12. "He is an annoying one, always able to read the setter and pester the hitters simultaneously.
We will find it hard to deceive him with the setter, but if we can isolate him and force him to face Ito-kun, I think we will see sothing interesting here."
The captain of the team nodded, accepting the assignnt to face Tsunemori's middle blocker.
"As for the other one, here, the glasses boy." Saito pointed at the image of Yuki on the screen. "He is the leader of their defense. Everyone, even the libero listens to his command, and based on what we see in the video of their second round, his judgnt is more often correct than not.
We cannot judge his defensive level as their opponent in the second round didn't put up a decent fight, but we can assu that he is good in ga-reading and receiving."
Even though it seed a lot, the information was too vague. For once they regretted that they didn't have the record of the ga between Tsunemori against Shimoyawata.
"Still, what I am worried about the most is not them, but their head coach." Saito continued, zooming in on Tsunemori's bench to show their coach. "His na is Shinji Akira, a forr national team mber when he was on the university team before he had to retire early due to a knee injury.
He coached a local team in Kyushu more than ten years ago and managed to bring them to the top 4 in the prefecture tournant before he flew to Italy to learn more about volleyball. He is also the direct disciple of Honda-sensei from Matsukita and Sekine-sensei from Tsukumi University, and I don't need to tell you how much those two weighted in Japan's volleyball, right?"
All the players nodded solemnly, finally realizing that the ga wouldn't be as easy as they thought before. To have a coach with that kind of rich resu, they needed to be wary of what kind of stunt Tsunemori would pull in the next ga. Still, they didn't seem to be worried about it, since they had the confidence to win the ga.
"No matter how good their coach is, if he doesn't have the players to support his idea, it would be useless, right?" Nitta comnted. "This would be an interesting ga, but I don't think they have a chance to beat us."
"Yeah!" The other players shared his sentint.
Saito let out a deep sigh, knowing that Nitta was right sohow about his judgnt of Tsunemori. Still, he couldn't help but feel uneasy, thinking that there was sothing he forgot to tell the team that might be crucial for the ga. But after thinking about it for a while and couldn't figure out what that was, he shook his head, decided to not think too hard about it.
'If it is important, I am sure I will rember it soon.'
Reviews
All reviews (0)