FROM STAFF REPORTS

MONTGOMERY – The North girls beat the South 3-2 and the North boys won 4-2 on Tuesday night to sweep the AHSAA North-South All-Star soccer matches at Emory Folmar Soccer Complex.

The North, coached by Albertville’s Julie Little and Indian Springs’ Hunter Gray, fell behind 2-1 in the girls’ contest midway through the second half, but rallied with two goals just three and a half minutes apart from 62:48 to 66:29 to pull out the win.

North MVP Walker Poe of Mountain Brook gave her team a quick lead, scoring the match’s first goal on an unassisted kick just 33 seconds into the game. Mallory Messer of St. Paul’s Episcopal tied the match with a goal at 8:27. Maggie Chambers of Montgomery Academy got the assist. Chambers, the South MVP, gave the South the 2-1 lead at 58:50 in the second half on an assist from Cameryn Rogers of Prattville.

The North tied the contest at 2-2 in unlikely fashion when the South planted the ball in its own goal just four minutes later.  Jordan Richmond of Holy Spirit Catholic got the game-winning corner kick to seal the win as the North improved to 12-2-1 in the annual series.

South goalkeeper Dora Eskridge of Montgomery Academy had two saves and Alyssa Vess of Oak Mountain had five saves for the North.

On the boys’ side of competition, North MVP Jose Moreno of Tanner scored two goals, one in each half, as the North posted its 10^th win in the all-star series. The South has four wins and the two squads have had one tie in the annual competition since 1998.

Cole Gerding of Cullman opened the scoring at 7:32 of the first half with an unassisted goal for the North. Cole Grogan of Benjamin Russell tied the match with an unassisted goal of his own at 13:15, but Moreno’s first goal at 32:24 put the North ahead for good.  Cole Williams of Hoover got the assist.

Kennedy Davis of Oak Mountain added an unassisted goal early in the second half, and Moreno scored on a feed from Helena’s Landon Gaskins at 65 minutes to ice the win for coaches Casey Harbin of Cullman and Matt Hall of Spain Park.

North goalkeepers Kyle Oswalt of Guntersville and Seth Torman of Pelham had four and two saves, respectively.

Five boys from Shelby County, Jack Wilson of the Westminster School at Oak Mountain, Liam Condone of Spain Park, Davis, Gaskins and Torman participated in the game. In addition to the five boys, there were six girls from the county that took part in Spain Park’s Brennan Cooke, Thompson’s Meghan Cottingham, the Westminster School at Oak Mountain’s Camryn Neal, Indian Springs’ Josephine Gray, Chelsea’s Madeline Guillen and Vess.