Cardinals win the West Virginia North-South Football Classic in historic overtime

It was a memorable day, some of West Virginia’s great high school football talents gathered to participate in the All Star match of the North Bears and the South Cardinals at Black Eagles Stadium.

A very conservative first half which was punctuated by a seesaw tussle for a good part of the game until the Cardinals made a goal line stand for 21 – 20 over the Bears finally in overtime.

As it starts with possession by the Cardinals offence, the ball was turned over and possession returned to the Bears. There was a rather notable scramble at the field by Dylan Ours of Fairmont Senior before getting escorted out.

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North reached the red zone but lost this to the Cardinals’ defense while on the notice of 4th & Goal of the Bears.

The Bears really posed a challenge to the Cardinals and the first quarter was goalless to the settling of the second quarter.

At the middle of the second quarter, University’s Luke Hudson flicked the ball and attempted to dodge two opponent tacklers to pass the ball to Landon Frey of North Marion for a first down and Malachi Stromile of Weir High School managed to scramble forward the ball past the 30 inches yards.

It was all Bears after a foul committed by the Cardinals took the team nearer to the goal line. The penalty further opened the box for the scoring play of Ours that eventually put the Bears on the scoring position.

However, after getting a conversion of a field goal, South tried to get downfield; unfortunately, it was cut short by time as the match reached the half-time break.

At the end of first 30 minutes, the Bears was leading the cards over the South by 9:1 in first numbers down while securing 78 yards for rushing and 41 yards for passing. The Bears dominated the use of the ball, played for a longer time than the Packers and committed no foul.

Interestingly, the Cardinals managed to level the scores courtesy of a big pass from Mingo Central’s Chris Ross to BJ Williams of Clay County, a 55-yard pass.

The South then take the lead again when Matt Frye of Scott passes to RJ Hairston of Bluefield for a 67 yard score, however The North answered right back and made a 50-yard connection between Hudson and Ours for a score.

It then proceeded to go into overtime for the third time only in the history of this classic. This is apparent with the South Cardinals taking a 21-14 lead but the South Bears getting a touchdown soon thus having a tighter competition.

The Bears formed a line in an attempt to score the two-point but were restrained by the Cardinals defense and in the end registered 21-20.