They were down 38 to 42 against the girls from Farmington, handicapped by shots that just would not fall, and the relative inexperience of their center, Rita Gonzalez. It wasn't that Rita was bad, she was in fact almost as good as Obansky, but she had not had much playing time...and very little with the starting guards, Joey and Andrea, because they had usually been on the bench in the blowout games she'd been playing. And worse yet, thought Rita, was that stitch in her right side was back. It had been annoying her since the warmup, and was now hurting with every step, every deep breath. This really wasn't fair, she thought. If anyone should have a gut ache, it ought to be Guerin or Lopez, with that stupid jalapeno game. She'd opted out after the first nacho....and her gut was still killing her. It wasn't fair.
Thirty minutes later the radio announcer was saying,
"It's the end of the third quarter and the West Roswell Team has pushed up into a tie with second-seeded Farmington at 59-59, powered in large part by the outside shooting of Andrea Lopez and the turnovers caused by Joey Guerin and the fast break opportunities they led to. And it's a good thing for Roswell that the three pointers from the outside have been falling, because the Farmington center has been dominating the boards, and rejecting anything that comes into the paint. I don't know if the Roswell center Gonzalez is getting tired or what, but she appears a step slower than she was in the first half, and not rebounding nearly as well......but if the Roswell guard can keep playing that aggressively...it may not make any difference."
Rita was struggling trying to get back on defense after the girl she'd been guarding had pulled down the rebound and cleared it to a Farmington guard. She'd been unable to keep up with the Farmington center because of the pain, and only a steal by Joey had kept the Farmington team from being able to exploit their three on two situation as the Roswell Forwards tried to cover for her. But as she reversed course to go back on offense,..as she saw Joey feed Andrea for a quick break lay-up, the world seemed to explode in Rita's abdomen and she felt herself going toward the floor. When she woke back up, she was in the locker room, looking up at the ceiling above the trainer's table and hearing the trainer's voice.
"This really doesn't look like a pulled muscle or anything, Coach, I think she's probably got an appendicitis...."
As the fourth quarter drew to a close an aggressive Roswell defense went into a full court press, resulting in several turnovers that denied Farmington a chance to use their front court advantage to pull back into the lead. As the final buzzer went off sending Roswell into the finals, the scoreboard read Roswell 82, Farminton 77. The happiest girl on the court actually was one who hadn't played a single second, Annie Gruber. The coach had looked at her briefly when Rita had collapsed...then moved one of the forwards to play center, and put in a backup forward. Roswell hadn't matched Farmington's front court, but Andrea and Joey had been more than enough to offset that. Annie wasn't upset....not a bit. The team had won, and she hadn't blown their chance. It didn't get any better than that. What worried her was that she knew the Roswell forwards weren't big enough to handle the Central center, and if Central High won against Santa Fe an hour from now....she would have to play...and she'd be playing against the best girls center in the whole mountain region. She said a little prayer for a Santa Fe victory, as she saw the crowd start to arrive for the later game.
"Listen up, everybody," said the coach. "Rita's out of surgery. It was her appendix but it hadn't burst. She'll be fine. The doctor says we can all see her about 8PM."