HUBBARD — An otherwise normal regular-season game between the Hubbard High School girls soccer team and Niles became anything but that, as both teams rallied behind a young member of the community with epilepsy and her family.

Palmer Beasley, 4, was the star of the evening Thursday, as she was made an honorary captain and was present during the coin flip. She presented the Niles team with purple captains’ bands — the color symbolizing solitude and the struggles people with epilepsy face.

The Hubbard team also presented Palmer and her mother, Meghan, with a t-shirt signed by the Eagles players and jerseys signed by players from the Mount Union University and Westminster College’s women’s soccer teams.

Meghan said Palmer initially began showing signs of epilepsy at 10 months old, explaining that she had some “head drop,” the involuntary forward dropping of the head due to weakness of the neck extensor muscles, causing the chin to rest on the chest, and a symptom of neuromuscular or neurodegenerative conditions.

“We took her to Akron Children’s; they did an EEG, she was clean,” Meghan said. “And then she started having eye twitches, and so she was diagnosed with epilepsy with an unknown origin — so MRIs, nothing showed anything.”

DNA testing revealed Palmer to have a very rare genetic disorder, focal epilepsy — so rare that a single study was done on 14 individuals, one of whom was a girl, Meghan said.

“It just causes delays, and the biggest mutation side effect is that they have seizures,” Meghan said.

Since Palmer’s initial diagnosis, Meghan said her daughter has been seizure-free for three years, recently weaning her off one of her medications and leaving her on just one more.

“Before, she did have speech delays; she had developmental delays with crawling, walking, meeting milestones,” Meghan said. “But she is catching up.”

As for why a soccer event was the focal point, Meghan said the sport has always run in their family, and Palmer is old enough to play, albeit reluctantly at first.

“She has a big personality, but she’s very scared of things she doesn’t know,” Meghan said. “She’s aggressive when she plays with her sister, but not so much with other kids. She’s learning slowly, and I think that’s also part of her process of development is learning how to kick a ball, learning how to play with others.”

Sunday will mark the third annual Purple for Palmer Epilepsy Walk, which will take place at Harding Park. Meghan said about 125 walkers have signed up thus far, but she expects more to register soon.