Alice's eyes darted back and forth to watch the ball get scattered across the field since every time a team would gain some ground, it would immediately be lost.
But that was the point of the game, and Alice settled down into her seat as she got more comfortable and into the match that was going by pretty fast. The rapid pacing was something that Alice could get behind because it captured her attention quickly.
The wind-up was getting closer since the red team was taking control of the ball more than the golden team, so the red team was eating up the field more than the golden team and pushing closer to the goal.
Alice was actually on her toes since the shots taken by the red team were so close, but not quite there. The openings that Rowan got, he didn't shoot, so it was mostly on the outside of the red team that was taking the opportunity to do so.
The second-to-last defender got beat by Rowan after a breakaway, and all of the defenders of the golden team started dropping to the goal in a frenzy as Rowan dribbled the ball down the third quarter of the field.
The crowd went wild, and so did everyone on the field. The golden team started yelling for everyone to go back, and the red team was screaming for a shot, Rowan glanced up for a moment and Alice covered her gasp knowing that it was practically a one-on-one battle.
Rowan got close to the goal, and the goalie crouched ready for his time to shine, clapping his gloves down on his knees for the hit that was soon to come. It was certainly no surprise when the beautiful shot sailed through the air from a swift kick from Rowan to the upper left.
Claudia grasped Alice's arm, and Alice bit down on her bottom lip only for her jaw to drop as the ball scored for the red team it went through the net in the upper left where the goalie jumped up for it, giving it his hall.
The ball grazed the top of the goalie's glove, but to no avail, the ball went into the net. The crowd surged up their seats and started clapping and cheering as Rowan gave a war cry in celebration making his team run out to him.
Alice got up making Claudia do the same, and they clapped while Berlyn and Carissa were screaming in encouragement. After the goal from Rowan, the game was called for a break by the referee before they started up again.
The second half of the game practically ended as it started considering the red team started putting more goals in, and by that time there were only a few minutes left. The red team had six goals while the red team had four goals.
In three minutes, it definitely was possible for the gold team to pull through, and it became very tense at the end with everyone watching the student's every little movement.
Time was dwindling down, and the gold team needed two more goals to tie it at four points or the red team only needed one more goal to finish off their match for the first round against the red team.
Alice sent some videos over to Noah which she hoped he was able to enjoy from afar since she was already getting tired from all the energy in the air despite feeding off of it sometimes.
She liked being around people, but only if it was in small doses.
In an environment like this, she was getting tired of people jostling her around.
Claudia placed an arm around her since she could easily read her mood which was both a good and bad thing on Claudia's part since Alice didn't want Claudia to seem like a babysitter.
The topic was brought up once, but Claudia waved Alice off saying that it was fine, and it was her way of looking out for her. Alice dropped her phone back into her pocket to refocus on the game only for the timer to run out, and the red team took the win eliciting more cheers of support from the audience side.
As the next teams got ready and warmed up with a five-minute interval in between each game, Claudia whispered, "Are you getting tired?"
Alice lifted a shoulder. "A bit, but it's fun."
"Don't worry too much and just enjoy it," Claudia grinned. "I wanted you to see and experience it."
"I do enjoy it," Alice laughed. "So thank you for dragging me out."
"Any time darling," Claudia winked. "Feel free to leave whenever."
"That wouldn't be fair to you," Alice said. "We'll leave together when it's over. I'm doing okay."
Claudia squeezed Alice's shoulder, and Alice looked up to watch as the game resumed. The hour flew by quickly with lots of laughs and tension. Most of the time, Alice ended up standing with the rest of the people since everyone would be sitting down watching the game peacefully for one moment before roaring in anger the next and standing.