An on-court (and courtside) basketball game report

MARIKINA CITY, PHILIPPINES—At 5:15 pm, we entered Marist gymnasium to start warming up. As I went in, I see students, varsity players, sitting in a circle as if they were enjoying a campfire. Since the game is near, they cleared the court for us. I saw my former high school Electronics teacher practicing his shooting with a teammate. It will be our basketball team against the High School Faculty members. I saw our assistant coach warming up. I wonder where the players are since the game is starting. If both teams don’t have at least five players, it will be a double default. Each team have sufficient players. They turned on the shot clock and the score board. The buzzer sounds, the coach to fielded me in the line-up. So I ended up as a starter. Some of the players from both teams are coming in as we play. I noticed all of us in the team are below 180 cm or six feet tall and the opponent have a tall center that we couldn’t guard. When he got the ball inside the paint, I was called for a foul as he goes up to shoot and I hit my elbow against his shooting hand. Foul counted; bonus free throw. He missed, I rebounded the ball and passed to our offense setter. I went to my area and I received a pass. A miss. Another possession, a teammate missed and I positioned myself for an offensive board. I jumped and tipped it towards the board. Miss. Again, our ball possession, I received a pass and took the shot again; nothing but net, it went in. My first two points of the tournament! After that, I grabbed two defensive rebounds. There is one sequence where I grabbed the ball from the opponent and no one is giving up the grip. I tumbled head first and the referee blew the whistle. Opponent’s ball. That would be the contributions I made throughout the first quarter and the game. My role shifted from a starter to a bench cheerleader. The real starting five entered the court for the second quarter. Goodness! I jeered my former high school teachers, made fun of the referees officiating, and started chanting “Defense!” along with our brothers watching from afar. I couldn’t help but do it since we were down by 19 points in the third quarter. But our head coach, a former professional baller and our starting center, said that we can still catch up with the remaining 10 minutes of the last quarter. You know what? The pep talk worked. We trimmed the big lead into just two in the last minute. Team mates brought the ball up the court, opponent scrambled after the ball, a turnover, still our possession. During the inbound, we complained to the referee that the time was running and we demanded a reset. Granted. Time: 45 seconds remaining. Our point guard, who’s an import, got a pass, drove to the basket and got a foul. Penalty. The foul shots went in and we tied the game! Their possession, we trapped their ball handler with a double team and the ref saw it as a foul. No problem, fourth team foul. No fouls to give. 20 seconds remaining, they can kill the time to get the last shot. Our team, using the man-to-man, they can’t get a look at the hoop. Result: overtime. Extra period, the lead kept changing. But within the final two minutes, we’re leading by six. When the opponent’s tallest player took a three and it went in, we went silent. Both teams are in penalty. Free throws here, free throws there. Scores kept changing within seconds. We are up by four, a two-possession ball game. Our point guard got fouled. Head coach called a timeout. Again, he told us to keep pushing without fouling. As the buzzer sounded, I shouted. Finally, we won. #PUSO That ends my report since I have a problem: I forgot the final score! Goodness! I’m tired. I have to rest. So this is how reporters write their article, huh? *UPDATE: I added some parts indicated with blue. I got rid of the adverbs.

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Questions: 1. Is my report convincing enough? 2. I thought I wrote no adverbs. Did you find any adverbs? If yes, where?

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Writing Prompt: Writing 101: Death to Adverbs (Assignment # 8)