By Corey J. Corbin

Allied News Sports Editor

NEW CASTLE — Grove City High School offensive coordinator Keith DeGraaf was drooling when he and the rest of his colleagues received the final roster for Saturday’s 18th annual West Penn Football Coaches Association’s North-South All Star Football Classic.

With former Mercer County stars Billy Altman (Sharon), Justin Angermeier (Mercer), Chris Clark (Grove City), Jake Hartley (Farrell) and Weston Schaa (Mercer) littering the North roster, DeGraaf easily could have turned into a mad scientist drawing up all kinds of plays with that talent.

Problem was Angermeier (practice) and Clark (work) got hurt two days before the game, while Schaa accidentally put his arm through a window and required several stitches. To add insult to injury, West Middlesex star Tyler Barris hurt his knee in the third quarter and never returned.

“That drooling turned into nausea when they kept getting hurt,” DeGraaf said as he exited the North’s lockerroom following a 15-13 win over the South at New Castle High School’s Taggart Stadium.

With just 17 healthy players and one quarterback, Bell knew the second half could be potentially problematic.

“We only had 17 kids,” said North head coach Jeff Bell, who coaches Grove City during the regular season. “We had asked 33 kids to play in the game and they said they would, but as we got closer to the game, we kept losing them for different reasons.

“We knew if somebody got hurt or went down we were going to be in a lot of trouble. I thought they’d wear us down in the second half, because they had more kids. Our guys hung tough. I was real happy with their effort. There were times when guys wanted to come out, but we only had six extra guys. There were other kids that didn’t want to come out.”

And was it ever!

The South scored twice in the fourth quarter and nearly erased a 15-0 deficit.

Wilmington’s Collin Fulkman, who finished with 73 yards and two TDs on 6-of-10 passing, connected with Union’s Linnell Robinson, who was named the South’s MVP, for a 20-yard scoring strike with 4:28 remaining. Nick Riggall was stopped short of the goalline on the ensuing two-point conversion.

South head coach Stacy Robinson used an All-Star rule and opted to have the North kick-off.

“There’s a rule that if you’re down by nine or more points in the fourth quarter that you have the option to kickoff or receive,” Bell said. “I knew the rule, but I wasn’t about to volunteer the rule. They were ready to kickoff to us, but somebody must have jogged their memory. There are a lot of (different) rules and unfortunately the officials didn’t know some of them. That puts them in a bad situation.”