Fast-forward to April 2. This time around, top seniors who didn’t already announce their college attendance plans deliver the morning announcement. They wait in line outside of the principal’s office, first come, first serve. The two seniors in quiz bowl and Monika are all waiting for their turn:

  “I am Cindy, I will be attending Boston College next fall”

  “I am Joaquin, I will be attending Claremont McKenna next fall”

  “I am Monika, I will be attending Vassar next fall”

  And this continues with other students, such as some of Cindy’s mathletics teammates. Ivy Day rolls around, but no Ivy League acceptance, Olivia muses. No luck this year.

  When the morning announcement ends, in the social studies classroom, Olivia and her team gets ready to make their presentation about slavery in Antebellum America. And everyone else gets a grading card.

  As their presentation unfolds, the others in that class are left wondering what made these athletes overperform in this presentation.

  Now I’m left wondering if Olivia and Todd did all the work for the other two, a bewildered Lothario ruminates in the dying seconds of the presentation. Maybe they feel like Becky and Ned are better at presenting… but we all learned a lot about abolitionism across race and gender lines with them, and also how the economies of the North and South both shaped how they lived with slavery.

  “Clearly, you’re all ready for the rigors of AP US History as well as AP US Government!” the instructor comments on the foursome’s presentation, which took one-third of the period.

  On the other hand, Lothario’s group has Lothario do the intro and outro, and about the turbulent early post-Revolution era, and how the Articles of Confederation failed the nation, leading to the Constitution.

  After the social studies period ends, Ned reminds Olivia of her commitment to him that she hasn’t fulfilled yet. And Lothario is right next to him, by the doorstep.

  “Did you forget about your promise to watch an away baseball game? Today’s the deadline to choose!” Ned warns Olivia.

  “Between quiz bowl studying, schoolwork, as well as morning weight room sessions and tutoring younger siblings of cheerleaders and athletes, I completely forgot about that!” Olivia sighs. “Today’s game…”

  “Speaking of today’s game, it’s my first start as a pitcher for VA!” Lothario announces to the couple, before telling them about the price of tickets to today’s game.

  Adriana comes up to Lothario. “Oh Lothario, I wouldn’t miss your first start as a pitcher!”

  “I love you, Adriana!” Lothario kisses her right in front of Olivia.

  Adriana now dates the set-up pitcher? Can’t say I’m surprised… Olivia then looks up the baseball schedule to see when the game is scheduled to take place, and where. Oh, the Westlake Rams.

  “I know what the HSNCT means to this town, to you, so I forgive you for having forgotten about this promise of coming to one of our away games. We understood what our teams mean to each other, and we both dream big for this season” Ned apologizes to her.

  “But while baseball doesn’t seem to be very popular in town, and I understood the sacrifices required of you to play baseball, you never told me what the goals were for the season!” Olivia points out to him.

  “The difference, like you said, was that everyone and their dogs in town knows that VA is in win-now mode in quiz bowl, whereas no one would have actually believed baseball would be in win-now mode, too!”

  “Look, we both had our reasons to be absent from each other lately, and you wouldn’t get to contribute to the VAs’ successes on the diamond without hard work. No more than I could have contributed as a quiz bowler!”

  “As much as I thought that respecting our lives away from each other mattered, I’ve been… negligent. All we did together had to do with this social studies group project!”

  “Oh sure, we were killing it”

  It makes me wonder why Ned suddenly told me that he was negligent. To him, seeing each other succeed in life away from each other was apparently key to our relationship! He was supportive in my early days as a quiz bowler, Olivia struggles to process her emotions as Ned’s actions, as of late, give her pause.

  “Our bus leaves at four thirty PM” Ned tells both Adriana and Olivia.

  Olivia turns to Lothario. “As promised as far back as quiz bowl-State, Lothario, I’ll help you in science. But at this point, Adriana and Ned would also benefit, so we’re going to do so together before the game”

  After school, the four are in a room where they’re busy doing their science homework, where they cover basic notions of genetics. And, once they’re done with it, they start doing homework in other courses, so they don’t need to do it in the bus to Westlake.

  “Thank you, Olivia!” a grateful Lothario tells her after the homework is finished.

  Once on the bus, Ned makes another confession to her, about what changed in her since she started playing quiz bowl. As they lean on each other:

  “Since you started playing quiz bowl, Olivia, you became far more studious. You’re no longer the girl I first knew…”

  “Is it a good or a bad thing? I admit this transformation was faster than I would have liked…” Olivia starts shaking in her seat. “Cheer is out of season for a third of the year. Then again it’s the first season for which there’s even cheer here!”

  “I would say neither. Going into this relationship, I expected that only one side would have extracurricular commitments at any time. But then came quiz bowl...”

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  “Ned, we only dated for, like, three months!”

  “I broke up with my last ex because she was far too clingy to my taste! You understand better than my ex that people have lives away from each other!”

  “Because I live the same sort of busy life as you, I can’t be too clingy”

  “In some ways, you remind me of Kendall Strickland. Granted, she’s a character of a book within an old movie that my parents made me watch last weekend...”

  “How so? Speaking of parents, my parents weren’t supportive of me playing quiz bowl! At least until they watched me play at State! You helped me pull through these dark times, albeit in private!”

  “She wasn’t a very good character, but like you, she was a blonde cheerleader who seemed to have brains! But, at the same time, she’s mean, and you aren’t!”

  Her brains aren’t portrayed very well, mind you. Whereas Kendall could easily hide it, probably because she just wasn’t that smart to begin with, Olivia was able to do so only if she didn’t play on an academic team, Ned reflects on how Olivia differs from Kendall in Waverly Prep 178 as portrayed in Young Adult.

  “I guess, now I’m much more confident intellectually” Olivia sighs.

  “And much smarter, too… You never seemed to use your smarts to its fullest extent until two months ago or so” Adriana comments on how Olivia changed in the past few months.

  Upon arriving at the game, the two cheerleaders buy tickets near third base, since the Westlake fans bought most of the tickets behind home plate as well as those near first base.

  “Play ball!” the umpire yells at the Rams’ starting pitcher when the VAs’ first batter is making his first at-bat.

  The VAs’ right outfielder hits a foul ball that goes wide into left, and the two girls scramble to catch the foul ball, in hopes of gifting the resulting foul ball to their boyfriend. In the end, Adriana catches the foul ball.

  “Now I know what I should give Lothario at the end of the game: this foul ball!”

  And then the first batter gets a base-on-balls, while the next two batters get struck out, with the right outfielder still on first base. When Ned makes his at-bat, Olivia trembles on her seat, in hopes that he won’t cause the inning to end prematurely for the VAs.

  “Venomous! Agendas!” the two girls shout in the home plate’s direction.

  “Hey, batter, batter, batter, batter, batter!” an opposing fan yells at Ned from a seat near first base.

  As the play unfolds, Ned records a base-on-balls, which causes the VAs to have two runners at first and second base. And what little fans VA have on hand seem happy with the outcome.

  What’s going on here? Two base-on-balls in the same inning? I really hope that the next batter will get at least a double… Olivia still trembles in her seat even though it’s still early in the game. Not quite the start I hoped from him, but at least he wasn’t struck out.

  And the VAs get an early lead when the next batter hits a home run, scoring 3 points for VA.

  When Lothario’s turn to pitch arrives, Adriana doesn’t hesitate to gush over his game. He throws a curveball, which results in a strike.

  “Now that’s my Lothario: no base-on-balls, no foul balls!” Adriana gushes over how his game differs from the Rams’ starting pitcher.

  But, later in the inning, an opposing batter hits the ball, causing Ned to dash towards the area where he feels the ball could fall. He leaps to catch it in mid-air. Time is short for him to then throw the ball to third base, and for the others to take the runner out.

  “Woohoo! What a catch!” Olivia comments on Ned catching the ball.

  “And... He’s out!”

  She then spends much of the following 2 innings poring over older quiz bowl packets on mobile, moving on to some combination of collegiate packets written, in whole or in part, by VA alums, declassified Red Army college sets, and so on. By the bottom of the third inning, Adriana realizes that Olivia has her mind elsewhere:

  “What are you looking at?” Adriana asks her fellow cheerleader.

  “Older quiz bowl packets. You realize by now that not only I’m going to the HSNCT, but going to the HSNCT means I must study from question sets from other sources, and do so regularly until the tournament! I wonder if you ever read a quiz bowl packet before...”

  “No. I mean, I played a few practice games with you as the ref a few weeks ago, and even that was already hard enough as it is”

  “By now you know that VA is in win-now mode in quiz bowl. And our opponents are studying the same as I!”

  Just to fend off Todd, it took all three of Becky, Lexie and I... Adriana reflects on her experience of playing quiz bowl as the VAs’ third inning ends. And Lothario’s playtime on the mound along with it, since the VAs’ manager doesn’t make pitchers work more than three innings in any given game. Still 3-0.

  By the seventh inning, the game is tied, 3-3, and Ned is brought in for an at-bat. Because the previous batter batted a triple, all he has to do is hit a single. And VA has two outs already; it’s only then that Olivia resumes paying attention to the game.

  “Venomous! Agendas!” the two girls shout in Ned’s direction.

  The opponents can’t afford to give up a base-on-balls, Lothario thinks while the opposing closer pitcher throws Ned a curveball. Which results in a ball since it went a bit outside the strike zone.

  The following pitches result in either balls or strikes. So when the sixth pitch rolls around, with Ned having accumulated 2 strikes and 3 balls, he starts sweating at home plate.

  Is it going to be his fastball or his curveball? Ned keeps sweating as the opposing reliever starts the sixth pitch of that at-bat. He swings the bat with a split-second to spare.

  Upon hitting the ball, he runs like the wind, away from the home plate, as does the ball arcing across the diamond, and over the right field. The opposing right fielder runs towards the fence in an attempt to catch the ball, but when he’s about to catch it, the ball slips past the fence. Out of the outfielder’s reach.

  By this point, the VAs already scored a fourth run, and Ned is running under the boos of the home crowd, realizing he just scored a homer, the VAs’ second one.

  “Hooooome run!” the VA fans in the crowd shout through the boos.

  However, the following batter is unable to capitalize on the momentum Ned gave them, as he gets struck on three strikes. Still managed to get two balls before that, though.

  Now comes the bottom of the seventh, and by the time the Rams get two outs, they manage to get 2 baserunners.

  The Rams’ right fielder is now brought in for an at-bat. The VAs’ closer makes a first pitch, and the opposing right fielder gets a strike.

  On the second pitch, the opposing catcher hits a foul ball, which nets him a second strike. As the foul ball flies off in the direction of the third base’s grandstands, Olivia tries to catch it, while VA’s third baseman limps back to third base.

  “Woohoo! I caught an opposing foul ball!” Olivia exclaims while the opportunity for VA to win the game remains open.

  Speaking of which, the next few pitches will be critical for both teams. And the opposing right fielder hits a glancing blow on the third pitch, but the glancing blow doesn’t prevent the ball from being caught by the catcher.

  Thus the game ends, with the Rams deprived of the opportunity to win the game on a last-ditch move. And what few VA fans were in the stands burst onto the diamond, with both cheerleaders in the lead.

  Naturally, Adriana heads for the mound, where Lothario waits for her, while Olivia makes for the second base, since Ned realizes the area behind the home plate is too crowded.

  “Now that’s what I call a home run!” Olivia then flashes the foul ball she caught just a few moments ago.

  “Why are you gifting me that baseball?” Ned asks her. “Keep it! I already have a few baseballs at home!”

  “Very well, I’m keeping that foul ball I caught at the bottom of the seventh. But I love you nonetheless!”

  The two kiss each other at second base, and, at the same time, Lothario and Adriana do the same on the mound. When their kiss ends, before Ned goes to the shower:

  “Thank you for holding your promise. It’s nice to take a little break from quiz bowl training and schoolwork. What a way to finish Ivy Day on a high note!” Ned, while failing to grasp the true meaning of Ivy Day, thanks her for coming.