Goal Line Read Online Free PDF Page B

ball as hard as he could. His teammates raced to his side, and they all hugged and danced around, so much so that the referee blew his whistle and called a penalty on them for excessive celebration!
    When they got back to the sidelines, Coach Wheeler was furious. “You guys just cost us fifteen yards!” he barked. “Use your heads, will you?”
    Tiki knew Coach was right. There was no point in rubbing the other team’s noses in it. It only made them mad, and got them to play harder. The smart thing to do was just keep playing your game and let the fans do the celebrating for you.
    Still, there was no arguing that the first score of the season was a big one. It set the stage for lots more. And the fact that Tiki was the one who’d scored seemed to announce that this year he would shine as the team’s biggest, brightest star.
    The second quarter started with the score 7–0, Eagles, but the Mountaineers were driving into field goal range. Tiki watched as Ronde covered East Side’s best receiver like a blanket.
    But the Mountaineers had learned from last year. They knew all about Ronde, and when they passed, itwas always to the side of the field where he
wasn’t
.
    The Eagles’ other starting corner, Justin Landzberg, was an eighth grader who hadn’t seen much action last season. Though taller than Ronde, he wasn’t nearly as fast, or as quick reacting to the other guys’ moves. The Mountaineers now took advantage of that, scoring a touchdown of their own with a long bomb over Justin’s head.
    Now the game was tied, and it stayed that way until late in the quarter, when Ronde ran a Mountaineer punt all the way back to the East Side twenty-five. Then it was Tiki’s turn to take over.
    Since the Eagles’ wide receivers were inexperienced—and in the case of the Amadou twins, rookies—Coach Wheeler had geared the Eagles offense toward the run and short pass—both of which featured Manny and Tiki.
    Manny hadn’t been a starter very much in the previous season, but he’d had enough experience to learn a lot. Besides, he was a talented natural athlete. Twice, breakdowns on the offensive line let blitzing pass rushers through. But Manny managed to dodge them long enough to find Tiki in the flat or at the sideline, or else he managed to run circles around the defenders until he turned a potential sack into a decent gain.
    Now Manny’s scrambling ability and Tiki’s savvy and smarts combined to punish the Mountaineers. Once again the blitz got through the Eagles’ line. Once more,Manny avoided the first hit, then the second. He faked out a third blitzer by pretending to launch a long bomb, then ducked and darted to his right, looking for Tiki.
    Tiki had gone out on a short pattern, which was partly why the blitz had gotten through. He hadn’t been there to block them. Now, seeing that Manny was in trouble, he doubled back, giving his quarterback a target at the ten yard line. Manny spotted him, and threw a strike right to Tiki’s chest.
    The safety got to him almost immediately. Last season Tiki would’ve been dragged to the turf. But not this year. He was bigger and stronger, and he just kept himself upright, trudging foot after foot toward the end zone, dragging the safety on his back, then the other safety around his ankles, until he finally collapsed under the weight of three East Side defenders—at the one yard line!
    On the next play Luke slammed it in for the touchdown. He, too, had grown over the summer and was now a perfect size for a fullback—big, muscular, and bulky. John Berra had been like that, and Tiki knew he was lucky to have another great blocker to work with this year.
    The gun sounded the end of the first half with the Eagles on top, 14–7. In the locker room Coach Wheeler pumped them up. “Come on, you guys!” he yelled. “You should be up by twenty, not seven! You think those guys are