this is just a cute pazzi oneshot pretending that the uconn 25-26 team won the championship!! hope u like
The buzzer sounded, and for a second I couldn’t hear anything at all.
There were twenty thousand people screaming around me. Confetti cannons were already going off somewhere above us. My teammates jumping, and yelling. The entire arena was shaking
But for one tiny moment, everything felt quiet.
The feeling felt familiar too.
Everyone always talks about how different it is the second time. How you appreciate it more. How it means more.
Maybe that’s true for some people.
For me, it felt exactly like the first one.
Not because it wasn’t special.
It was the same overwhelming rush of gratitude. The same disbelief. The same realization that every early morning, every injury, every bad game, every tear had somehow led right here.
I looked around at my team.
At the girls who saw and comforted me after every bad game.
The girls who had never once lost any faith in me no matter how badly i had played.
The girls who made every day feel a little bit easier no matter what i was struggling with.
I stand there in awe, looking up at the navy blue and white confetti falling slowly until it hits the ground.
It was one of those bittersweet moments you know you are going to miss whenever it ends.
I was mainly trying to savor the moment, knowing this was the last time i was probably ever going to get to celebrate with these girls again.
The last time i was ever gonna wear a Uconn jersey.
Soon, reality came rushing back.
And interviews after interviews.
I lost track of how much time passed.
The arena was still buzzing.
Families had started making their way onto the floor.
I was talking to one of my teammates when something caught my eye.
A familiar blonde head moving through the crowd.
And suddenly everything else disappeared.
My heart immediately knew before my brain did.
She had just come down from the stands.
She was weaving through people, smiling so hard it looked like her face hurt.
The second our eyes met, her smile somehow got even bigger.
Then we were both running.
I could hear teammates laughing somewhere behind me.
I could also feel everyone watching us.
The closer she got, the harder my chest squeezed.
Because nobody understood what this season had taken from me better than she did.
Every frustrated phone call.
Every moment I doubted myself.
And she’d been there anyway.
By the time we reached each other, I was already tearing up.
I didn’t even realize it until she wrapped her arms around me
Then suddenly I felt everything.
I crashed into her so hard she stumbled backward a step.
Then her arms tightened around me.
Like she never wanted to let go.
I buried my face into her shoulder.
For a moment, neither of us said anything.
Hundreds of people around us taking photos, and videos that most definitely will be used in a bunch of fan edits.
I didn’t care. It somehow felt like there was nobody else in the stadium.
I felt her hand slide up to the back of my head.
Then her voice broke the silence,
“I’m so, so proud of you.”
The words hit me harder than I ever could’ve expected.
My eyes immediately filled again.
I laughed through the tears.
I pulled back enough to look at her.
That soft smile she only got with me.
Then she pulled me right back into her arms.
I hugged her even tighter this time.
Around us, confetti still floated through the air.
The trophy was being passed around.
The crowd was still cheering.
I could’ve sworn that everyone in the whole stadium was recording us.
But I barely noticed any of it.
My cheek pressed against her shoulder.
And for the first time all season, everything felt quiet.
