It wasn’t supposed to take this long for brothers Tucker and Walker Hume to share the field.
Save for an exhibition game against Gardner-Webb in 2014, the Humes have never played together in a soccer game for North Carolina.
That all changed Friday night, when the Humes opened their senior season side by side.
“It’s something that we’ve been waiting a long time for here at UNC,” Tucker said. “With Walker playing the first year, me playing the second year and not being on the field together. So it was special.”
Coach Carlos Somoano said it was satisfying to finally see the two of them take the field together.
“We brought them here together, and they’re going to leave together,” Somoano said. “I never really thought about it any differently because even if only one was playing, they were still together, so the fact that they were on the field at the same time was a cherry on top of the cake.”
They finally got to share that moment with each other this weekend as the No. 8 Tar Heels (2-0) opened the season with a pair of 3-0 wins over Cal Poly (0-2) and Saint Louis (1-1) in the Carolina Nike Classic at Fetzer Field.
After redshirt-senior Tucker Hume used his 6-foot-5 frame to post up his defender deep in the box, he turned around and delivered a shot that went right through the legs of Cal Poly goalkeeper Simon Boehme to give North Carolina a 2-0 lead in the 38th minute.
“As a big target forward, being in the box is definitely where I need to be,” Tucker said. “So using my body well and letting the ball roll across my body is a good play for someone my size.”
