An outburst of scoring by Madison Blair has caused some head scratching.
The opportunity was presented to move from a midfield spot up to striker in a recent match.
Normally taking joy in being a distributor, the change in position led to a career-high in goals scored in a match. And she duplicated the feat the next time she took the pitch.
The question came up: Did Blair miss her calling this whole time?
Blair is a senior soccer player at Greenon. She recently scored six goals in a match against Catholic Central and tallied three additional assists.
For her efforts, Blair was named the Dayton Daily News Athlete of the Week, presented by Orthopaedic Institute of Dayton, for Oct. 18-24, earning the honor through reader voting at DaytonDailyNews.com.
“I was so excited to be nominated,” she said. “I put in a lot of time and effort into this sport and played it for about 16 years now, so hearing I was nominated was really cool and winning it, well I was just surprised and excited.”
Blair followed up her first six-goal performance with another six goals and pair of assists Monday, Oct. 19, against Catholic Central. That was followed by her Knights team defeating Graham in its Division IV tournament opener Thursday, Oct. 22.
She raced back from attending the national FFA convention in Indianapolis to be able to take part in the first tournament win for Greenon in several seasons.
“I went straight to the field to meet my team, played, and then went straight back to the convention,” Blair said. “I was freaking out the whole way home since I knew that we had to win. … Our team played so well, working all together. It felt great and it was pretty exciting.”
Blair has currently scored 41 goals and amassed more than 90 points during her senior season.
Both totals are the amongst the most in a single season in Greenon history. Her ongoing season goal total will get her into the Ohio High School Athletic Association record books, and she is four away from tying the Ohio Heritage Conference single season record.
Blair said she has played in the back and midfield for most of her life. She came into this year with 13 total goals scored in three high school seasons.
Stepping into more of a leadership role and using the teachings of her father and new team coach, Kevin Love, Blair has done whatever has been asked to represent being a captain.
She was rewarded with an incredible pair of scoring efforts that allowed her and her teammates to be able to do their hat trick celebration on the field together not once but twice.
“I was nervous to play up there,” Blair said of the change in position. “But I was excited. … It was fun celebrating the goals with all of them and it was exciting to score that many for sure.”
The pair of six-goal games enters into the many memories Blair said she has made playing soccer, among them celebrating with teammates, helping each other get their hair ready before matches and making TikToks while they’re doing it.
She hasn’t made any highlighting her goal scoring, but she has plenty to choose from should she decide to do so.
Blair said she hasn’t asked to play a position as she just has always wanted the one that would get her on the field.
After the recent the goal outburst, her coach told her, “Well, maybe this should be your position.”
“I’m blessed to have great teammates that were there to support me and cheer me on for all the goals. It was awesome,” she said.