MILL VALLEY, Calif. -- A 9-year-old Mill Valley boy who was hit in the head during a soccer scrimmage Wednesday afternoon has died at Children's Hospital in Oakland.

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Hospital spokeswoman Venita Robinson said the boy died at 6:19 p.m. Wednesday. Mill Valley police identified him as Conner Bell.

Mill Valley police Capt. James Wickham said the boy was playing goalie when he was hit in the head by the knee of another player as he bent over to pick up the soccer ball. He suffered serious brain damage, police said.

The accident happened at Alto Field behind the K-5 Edna Maguire School on Lomita Drive shortly after noon, Wickham said. A parent at the practice game called for help on a cell phone, Wickham said.

Wickham said the boy was unconscious when police, fire and paramedic units arrived. He was flown by a Cal-Star helicopter to the Oakland hospital.

The boy was playing on a team in the Mill Valley Youth Soccer League, Wickham said. "It was a pure accident. It's devastating for the community," he said.

Bell's death comes on the heels of the death of another 9-year-old soccer player, who collapsed on the field of an Antioch elementary school at the end of her first-ever soccer practice on Aug. 2.

It was determined later that week that Oakley resident Ariana Williams, who was her mother's only child, had died of a heart defect.