Hunter had a long and exhausting weekend with a soccer tournament.
Hunter only has one mode when he’s playing soccer – beast mode! He plays fast, he plays hard, and he plays physical. This is great when you have one game in a weekend. When you play three it makes it a little harder. Especially when your team only has one sub and the one sub is nursing an injury sustained at the beginning of the second game. They had some tired legs.
He played every minute of every game and by the end his body could feel it. He had taken a knee to his thigh in the first game of the tournament and he was in some pain. He woke up Saturday morning not sure if he could even run. But he iced. He heated. He stretched. He did electrotherapy stimulation. He did biofreeze. And he started the second game because the extra player hadn’t arrived. And you know what – he did great. He warmed up and within ten minutes you wouldn’t have even known he was hurting. (Although watching him walk today would tell a different story.)
He played hard just like he always does and he’s fun to watch. He plays defense and he had some great saves including a risky slide tackle in the box that he luckily managed to get a foot on because the other team was primed to score. Although, his highlight moment was in the last game – a tied game. He came up from his defensive position and the ball was bouncing around in front of their scoring goal, each person trying to get a foot on it. And Hunter comes full body sliding from out of nowhere and carried that ball into the net with his body.
Scoring as a defensive player is a special moment and I thought for sure he was going to rip his shirt off and run down the field. He was on a high Saturday night – despite being physically exhausted beyond measure. Call me crazy, but I love tournament weekends.
