Scary injury overshadows win
In a game nearby, Heritage player also taken to hospital by helicopter
OAKLEY >> The helicopter departed from a nearby field as Freedom’s football team huddled inside the stadium after an emotional 14-7 victory over Antioch. The players looked up and pointed skyward, to their fallen teammate.
The helicopter was transporting lineman Colby Hunter to John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek after the senior suffered a scary injury midway through the fourth quarter Friday night.
Hunter lay on the field for nearly a half an hour before being removed by stretcher and placed in an ambulance that was parked on a track near the Freedom bench.
The ambulance moved Hunter to the adjacent field where the helicopter had enough room to land.
“As of now, we’re positive about it,” Freedom coach Andrew Cotter said after the game. “He’s got feeling. He’s got movement. He’s just got a lot of pain in the lower back ... That’s the most important thing at this point. None of this matters. We want our kids to be safe.”
In an update to Cotter from Hunter’s father Saturday morning, the family was told that Hunter has bulged discs, pinched nerves and pulled muscles in his back and will make a full recovery with rest and physical therapy.
Hunter is now home, Cotter added.
At nearby Heritage High, another helicopter was called to transport 16-year-old Adrian Mendez to John Muir.
According to Heritage athletic director Nate Smith, the linebacker left the field under his own power, removed his helmet and sat on the bench before symptoms of a head injury began to worsen.
Heritage coach Don Sanders told Smith late Friday that his player had regained alertness but was being kept hospitalized for observation. Pittsburg beat Heritage 66-14. As of Saturday afternoon, Mendez was continuing to show improvement, Smith said.
In the Freedom game, the score was 7-7 when Hunter was injured on a 6-yard run by his teammate, Roy Lee, with 7:54 left.
A penalty was called on the play, moving Freedom to the 30.
When the game resumed with the ambulance still on the track, Freedom drove for the decisive score.
Michigan commit Giles Jackson answered with the play of the game, if not the season, for 12thranked Freedom (5-1).
On third and long from midfield, Antioch senior Devonyae McClay grabbed Joey Aguilar’s deep pass near the goal line, but Jackson pulled it away from the defensive back.
The 47-yard gain gave Freedom the ball at the 2.
“They had double coverage on me, and I knew I was going to have to make a play,” Jackson said. “He had it at first. But when we were going down, I took it and rolled over. It was a crazy, a slowpaced game. That just basically changed momentum after all the penalizes and stuff. It felt great.”
Three plays later, Jake Byrne threw a 1-yard pass to Brett Bausola in the back of the end zone for the tiebreaking score.
Aguilar said it was tough getting back on the field after Hunter’s injury. The players’ thoughts were on Hunter.
“That kind of broke all of our hearts,” he said. “We finished the game for him.”