“You get the best of the best when you coach this game and it’s always nice to see the best athletes matchup against each other,” says Frank Gaffney, coach of the Pine Grove Area Cardinals. Every year, a group of seniors from each school district are picked to play in the All-Star Game which involves the south of Schuylkill County going against the north of Schuylkill County. The school districts that are on the North team include: North Schuylkill, Tamaqua, Marian, Lehighton, Mahanoy Area, Jim Thorpe, Panther Valley, and Shenandoah Valley. The  school districts that are on the South team include: Pine Grove, Williams Valley, Tri-Valley, Nativity, Minersville, Schuylkill Haven, Blue Mountain, and Pottsville.

“It’s a good environment, everybody wants to win and have fun. It’s not really about getting playing time,” says #7 Dillon Kintzel, running back and linebacker of the Pine Grove Area Cardinals. North received the ball first. North’s quarterback, Chris Whiteman, ran for a 51-yard touchdown on the first drive which made the score 8-0. The South answered back with a touchdown pass caught by South’s Bryce Ellinger. However they failed to make the two-point conversion, making the score 8-6 North. South took the lead on a Ben Kramer touchdown in the middle of the second quarter giving them the lead at halftime, 12-8.

The start of the second half had Ben Kramer scoring yet another touchdown for South extending their lead to 18-8. Daulton Leedy threw a perfect pass to Isaac Lucas, midway through the third quarter, giving them 25 unanswered points. The North didn’t give up though, scoring a touchdown late in the fourth quarter resulting in a final score of 25-14. This win gave the South three straight wins. Throughout the game, players from each team were doing celebrations, skits, and dances with their teammates including leapfrog and duck, duck, goose. At the end of the game, Dillon Kintzel said, “You have to put everything aside and just have fun.”