DOVER-FOXCROFT, Maine — Hunter Smith, the Foxcroft Academy football standout recently selected to play in the Blue-Grey North-South All-American Bowl, will be sidelined indefinitely after suffering a dislocated left hip during the Ponies’ exhibition game at Orono Friday night.
According to his mother, Laurie Smith, he was taken from the field by ambulance to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor where the dislocation was confirmed and the hip was reset.
No additional damage was found and the family is scheduled to follow up Monday with an orthopaedic doctor.
A timetable for his return to competition has not been determined, though he has to wear a knee immobilizer and walk with crutches for the next two weeks.
“We are beyond thankful that he did not break anything,” Laurie Smith wrote in an email. “The outpouring of care and concern for our son from both the Foxcroft and Orono communities has been amazing.”
The injury occurred on the second play of the game with Orono, Foxcroft’s final tuneup before the Ponies open their regular season with a home game against Mount Desert Island of Bar Harbor next Friday night.
Foxcroft was running a passing play when Hunter Smith looked downfield and spotted his younger brother Hyatt Smith, a freshman playing wide receiver for the Ponies, wide open.
Just as the senior quarterback released the ball he was hit by an Orono defensive lineman, leaving the pass short of its target to be intercepted by the Red Riots’ Keenan Collett.
Collett — a friend of Hunter Smith who also competes with him in basketball and track and field — sprinted with the ball toward the end zone before being tackled by Hunter Smith. As Hunter Smith dove to make the stop, his knee was driven into the ground but his momentum kept thrusting his hips forward as he finished the tackle and he reported hearing a pop near his left hip.
“Keenan even came over to talk with my husband Dean after the game to make sure that Hunter was OK,” Laurie Smith said. “That speaks volumes to me about the character of this fine young athlete, and that’s what it’s all about.”
Hunter Smith rushed for 1,037 yards and 22 touchdowns last fall while serving as quarterback to help lead coach Danny White’s Ponies to a 7-3 record and and a berth in the Eastern C semifinals but was selected as a wide receiver for the Blue-Grey North South All-American Bowl. That high school all-star game will be played Jan. 9, 2016, at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida, home of the National Football League’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Hunter Smith was among 200 incoming seniors — many of whom already have made verbal commitments to play at major Division I college football programs — selected from a pool of 6,570 invited players who competed in a Blue-Grey regional or super combine earlier this year.
The honorees are divided into four teams of 50 players each representing the North, South, East and West regions.
Hunter Smith will be a member of the North squad that will face off against the South beginning at 8 p.m. Jan. 9. The East-West game will be played Dec. 20 at AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys.
He was selected for the game based on his performance among 50 players invited to participate earlier this year at the All-American Bowl’s Mid-Atlantic Super Combine in Richmond, Virginia.
During that event he posted the combine’s fastest time in the shuttle run, had the third-best performance in the broad jump and ran what at the time was a personal-best time of 4.68 seconds in the 40-yard dash.
Hunter Smith, whose father starred in basketball at Foxcroft and the University of Maine, also is the reigning Big East Conference player of the year in that sport and this spring was the Class C outdoor track and field state champion in both the 110 hurdles and high jump while finishing second in the long jump and third in the 300 hurdles.
Hunter Smith is expected to be one of the more highly recruited Maine high school football players in the Class of 2016. Early Division I connections have included the University of Maine, New Hampshire and Ivy League schools, such as Dartmouth and Harvard.
