He carried his baby sister's casket. Then Martinsville senior played the game of his life.

Editor's note: This story was originally published in September.  We are republishing it as we look back at some of our most-read stories of the year.

MARTINSVILLE – Five days after Brandon Kent held his sister for the first time and told her he loved her, he gathered with family at the funeral home to say goodbye to Payton Sawyer Smith. Kent was still wearing his shirt and tie Friday afternoon, about 5:30 p.m., when he arrived at the Martinsville football stadium.

“I wasn’t really feeling it,” Kent said. “I wasn’t having a good day.”

Kent’s mother, Ashley Smith, encouraged him to play in the game against Franklin. At the end of an emotional week, she knew football would be a good release for her son, an 18-year-old senior at Martinsville. It always has been. He fell into deep depression after his freshman year of football, a time that coincided with the separation of his parents and the COVID pandemic. He quit football as a sophomore and almost quit on himself.

“He was this overachieving, social butterfly, bubbly kid,” Ashely said. “Then it got really bad, really rough. Myself, I missed it. I put that blame on myself because I didn’t notice it at first. He stayed in his room, very angry. I feel like when he got back in football, it helped.”

Kent took the field Friday night with a heavy heart. His sister, Payton, was born April 3 with Recombinant 8 syndrome, a rare condition that caused issues in her heart and brain and led to her being on a ventilator most of her five months and seven days on Earth. Doctors said she may not live more than four weeks or survive one surgery. She survived five.

“We were hoping everything was progressing,” Kent said. “There for a while, she was pretty good. Then everything started to go downhill again.”

Payton was a fighter. The daughter of Ashley and husband Kyle earned the nickname “Queen P” from the neonatal intensive care unit at Riley Children’s Hospital. For about two weeks in May, she was able to get off the ventilator. But she contracted a rhinovirus, which caused her left lung to partially collapse. Myriad other health issues ensued, most notably fluid on her brain.

On Sept. 10, a Sunday, she died in her parents’ arms in the outdoor courtyard at Riley at 8:32 p.m. Brandon held her that night, too, for the first time.

“It was sad,” he said. “I didn’t know what to think, honestly. It was just sad. That’s all. I talked to her, told her I loved her.”

Martinsville coach Brian Dugger and the team attended the family service for Payton on Friday afternoon after school. “It meant a lot to me,” Kent said of seeing his teammates there. “I was about to start crying. It meant a lot.”

Dugger texted Kent prior to the service to confirm he was still planning to play. Kent said he was. But admittedly — and understandably — he was emotionally drained.

“You could see he looked a little dazed,” Dugger said. “He was a little exhausted from the emotion of everything. You weren’t really sure what was going to happen.”

Kent is perhaps generously listed at 5-10 and 140 pounds. A new assistant coach in the secondary immediately told Dugger at first glace Kent was too little to play for them. Dugger smiled. “Just wait,” he said. “That kid can bring it.” But after missing all of his sophomore year, Kent’s junior year was not the splash he hoped it would be. Dugger preached patience.

“He thinks he should make every play,” Dugger said. “He’s hard on himself. But we talked about how he took a whole year off football so his junior year was more like his sophomore year in football years.”

Kent made 50 tackles as a junior, but did not make his first interception until two weeks ago in a 25-24 win over Decatur Central. But that was just an appetizer for Friday night’s game against Franklin, a scene that Dugger said was like “something out of a movie.”

Martinsville had gone ahead of Mid-State Conference rival Franklin by nine points late in the first half. As the clock ticked inside of 30 seconds, Franklin quarterback Greyson Betts dropped back and attempted to hit leading receiver Quentin Richards on a curl route up the right sideline.

“I saw the quarterback’s shoulders turning toward me and I started going downhill a little bit,” Kent said. “He just released it and I was right there. I just jumped in front of it.”

Kent caught it at the Franklin 27-yard-line and ran into the end zone with the ball raised above his head in his right hand. He was immediately tackled in celebration by teammate Lucas Dewey and swarmed by the rest of the defense.

“It kind of felt unreal,” Kent said. “Coming straight from the service to the game, I wasn’t thinking I was going to have a good game. But after that pick, everything kind of turned.”

Kent pointed to the sky and ran to the sideline, greeted in embrace by Dugger.

“Amazing,” his mother said.

That play was a highlight — and just the beginning. On the first drive of the second half, Franklin drove inside the Martinsville 30. On 3rd-and-1, the ball squirted loose in the Franklin backfield and Kent jumped on it for a fumble recovery.

On the next Franklin drive, Kent laid parallel to the ground and made a one-handed snag with his left hand on a Franklin pass in the flat.

“I was trying to smack it away,” he said. “The ball just stuck to my glove and I was able to haul it in. I definitely wasn’t expecting to catch that one.”

At the end of Martinsville’s 32-14 win, Kent had two interceptions, one touchdown, one fumble recovery and six tackles. When it was over, he received hugs and well-wishes from countless friends and family members.

“I had so many people talking to me, I couldn’t keep everything in my brain,” he said. “But I know (my mom) said she was proud of me and she loved me. She’s always there for me. That’s my best friend. Definitely my best friend.”

Saturday morning, Kent and his stepfather carried his sister’s tiny casket at a private funeral service at the New South Park Cemetery in Martinsville. “Another hard day,” he said. But even the hard days are not as difficult as they were when he was “in a dark place” two years ago.

“I think some people know what I was going through, but don’t know if they know I was in a truly dark depression,” he said. “I fell off bad, went deep dark hole. There are probably a lot of kids going through a family struggle that no one knows about, but you just have to keep going one day at a time. It’s going to get better.”

The story does not end here, of course. There will be battles ahead, challenges to overcome. But Dugger said the arc of Kent’s journey in two years to his family’s heartbreak to Friday night’s game seemed like something Disney would script.

“When I was watching the replay and saw the dogpile after his touchdown and saw like 10,000 people trying to get to him, you could almost see Brandon look like, ‘I’m home,’” Dugger said. “It was like, ‘This is where I’m supposed to be.’ For him to feel that love and have 100 other people in our program right there with him — it meant a lot.”

Kent’s mother, tears in her eyes, could not help but notice the Martinsville score matched Brandon’s jersey number.

“It was a very emotional night,” she said. “I cried a lot of tears. But I was so happy for Brandon. It was kind of a sign to me that everything is going to be OK. I think it was a sign from Payton saying, ‘It’s OK. I’m better now.’”

Call Star reporter Kyle Neddenriep at (317) 444-6649.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Martinsville senior has game of life hours after sister's funeral