Chapter 35 A Star Is Born 1
So Jake's first competition in the day and in his life also ended he won first, picked up a trophy and $ 500 reward, plus he was not so happy because he showed poor performance in his opinion.
Of course, if those who lost to him knew that he thought he had a poor turnout despite having won and being 3 years younger than the other finalists he would be beaten to death.
Her mother mostly did not stop smiling, she even forgot that when Jake told her that she was confident of winning a contest she wanted him to suffer not to be arrogant, after all her son was not arrogant he was even very humble.
That's how life is just getting results for people to know if someone is really capable or just into it, especially in sports.
So it took a while for the audience to calm down and meanwhile the event organizers took pictures of Jake with the prize and started organizing the court for the second competition.
Everyone thought that with Jake winning the advertising that the company was preparing and even invested heavily so it was going to work very well, of course, they did not realize that when charging the fees they had already damaged the image of the companies.
The second competition was for 3-point pitches, as now everyone had to pay a fee of $ 10 to participate, only a few people aged 14 and 15 enrolled, so the total number of participants was only 80 people, which already was enough for the difficulty of the competition.
The rules and format are very similar to those of the NBA All-Star, for the competition of 3-point pitches.
They would be in the beginning because there were many participants and would have to have rounds of eliminations that all would throw 3 balls of five different positions in the court, two in the sides, two in the diagonals and one in the center of the line of 3 points, similar to the one of NBA, each one would have 1 minute and the 10 that would hit the most would go to the final, each basket was worth one point, if there was a tie, all that would tie would go to the final.
So each competitor could make a maximum of 15 points, of course, everyone thought that at most 7 balls would be right.
Just as all the contestants went to draw their turn Jake went up again, at first everyone was shocked the sooner everyone cheered a lot, it seemed like a celebrity was going to participate.
After all it is normal to understand everyone's reaction, for an 11-year-old boy to know how to do Free Throw with such a high hit rate was already incredible, now imagine that he also knew how to do 3-shot was unbelievable, after all, it is difficult for the most Jake was the only one who dared to participate at age under 14 years.
If it were before, many would mock him for trying harder and being arrogant, but since he was the champion in the Free Throw, no one would dare to underestimate him.
Jake again showed his luck defying the sky and was among the last three, so the young people started to climb on the court to start throwing with everyone feeling the pressure brought by Jake, after all, although it is obvious Jake should be a basketball prodigy yet it was a shame to lose to someone much younger when one should have the advantage.
Soon the competitors were making their pitches one by one, as expected by all of them this was the most time consuming and boring competition to watch, it had already been over an hour and a half and Jake had not yet come, and the competitors were not very good so that the eliminatory phase was not very lively.
After everyone had just missed Jake and two more, the one who had made the most points and hit more pitches of 3 was a 15-year-old, he was down for his age seemed to be 1.50 m, and he had done 8 points , he hit everyone from the right corner of the court and all from the center of the 3-point throwing area, and hit a ball on each of the diagonals.
It must be that because he was new he trained more in these places, his pitches in the left corner of the court were horrible to see neither hit nor the rim, so he should never train from that position.
Another 3 youngsters made 7 points and 6 others had 6 points, so Jake and the other two competitors had to make 6 points to go to the next round, after all, who draw fewer points after completing ten people also goes to the final
Jake started to make his throws from the left corner, as it was not a game and he did not score and this competition valued more the speed of pitches, Jake made his pitches without jumping that was his specialty, so he hit two of the three pitches of that corner left.
When Jake hit his first shots the crowd began to cheer because they knew that since he hit one he had the talent to be the champion, after all, he would not go to court just to be ashamed after he won a trophy.
Her mother was also more and more excited in the audience, when she saw that her son was the only young woman participating she became more worried after her son hit one she trusted him, after all in spite of the others calling him a prodigy only she knew that he trained every day in his basement for over a year to reach the level he is today.
When Jake went to the left-hand corner of the court he hit two more of the three pitches, he was not trying to make a mistake, it was difficult to hit even, then in the middle position he hit three of the three pitches, that was his preferred position after right corner of the court.
Then he threw all the last six balls quickly and erred all, at this point everyone in the audience already began to suspect that Jake just tried to hit enough to move to the next stage or to be the champion and then miss the rest of purpose, after all, he did this also in the Free Throw competition.
In fact, they had already suspected before but did not dare to believe that an 11-year-old would have the mentality of not wanting to show too much and not show all their strength.
And that was the truth, but what Jake made to miss on purpose was not only to not stand out, but also to save energy, after all he was going to participate in 3 competitions today and all these competitions had several stages, and to hit a pitch requires a lot of focus as well as physical effort.
After Jake went to his mother's side, the two who threw after Jake was unlucky and form eliminated so only 11 people went to the final, taking Jake all the others were 15 years old.
So now it was around 4 o'clock in the afternoon and the organizers paused in the competitions so that people could rest for a while and go eat too.
Jake ate with his mother some food Eva had brought from home, they went to a corner and as the people were educated no one approached to greet Jake who had been the champion, after all, everyone should have their right to privacy, and mainly because Jake was going to have a little rest before attending another final, could be his second trophy, for young people with him was an incredible achievement.
So after half an hour of rest, the finals resumed, the competitors were going to pitch in the same order as before so Jake would be the last one again.
The rules of the final were the same as the NBA this time, it would be five balls in five places of the court and the last ball of the five of each place would be a Moneyball equal to the NBA, and that ball would be worth 2 points.
As competitors would still have one minute each had less time for each pitch, the maximum points that could be made in that final were 30, and the one who made the most points would be the champion, only in case of a tie would be made another round.
So the mood of the competition was also more lively, everyone in the final had skills to make the crowd cheer, and of course everyone's imagination already had a favorite, Jake, how he won the last competition and also everyone saw that he missed pitches by the way everyone thought he was going to be the champion, it was different from the Free Throw contest that he was the underdog, everyone had recognized his abilities.
In addition, some of those finalists pitched their last balls in the last second last round, and now they would have a lot more balls and the time was the same, plus Jake had thrown his last ball before half the time pass by to throw without jumping.