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North topples South in all-star football Rutland Herald | November 18, 2017 TOM HALEY MIDDLEBURY — The North defeated the South 57-41 in Saturday’s North-South All-Star Football Game at Middlebury College , but this is an event where the game is about more than the score. Missisquoi’s Hunter Tardy is the poster boy for much of what this 17-year showcase of Vermont’s top high school senior football players is about. Tardy languished in obscurity all year, playing for a Missisquoi program tucked away in the Canadian border community of Swanton: one that won only a single game all fall and that has only been in existence two years. He had a game-high 13 tackles. The player few people in the stands knew about had his name called by public address announcer Bobby LaFlamme possibly more than anyone. “He is special,” North assistant coach Rich Alercio said. “He has been like that all week. The first practice when I saw him, I said, ‘Who is this kid?’ He is special.” “When you play for a team that had only one win all year and that has only been around two years, you have to work 10 times harder to maintain yourself as a football player,” Tardy said. He plans to keep playing, likely at Castleton University, he said. If Tardy was the standout on defense for the North, you would not get much argument giving that same honor to BFA-St. Albans’ Nate Parady on offense. He rushed for 120 yards and three touchdowns and returned a punt for a touchdown. Two St. Johnsbury receivers had big games for the North squad. Jasper Rankin had 84 receiving yards and a touchdown and Shane Alercio had 47 yards worth of receptions with a TD. Alercio started his high school football career in Rutland and was playing against former RHS teammates Brendan Crossman, Dylan Moore, Ean Kearney and Austin Pearo. “I like playing against them and it’s always great seeing them again,” Alercio said. Crossman stood out on defense for the South with a team-high seven tackles. The North broke on top when a snap over the head of South punter Cameron Hedberg gave the North the ball on the South 1-yard line. Mat Roy plunged over for the score and the North led with 9:36 to go in the opening quarter and never trailed the rest of the day. The game was played with the 10-point rule that allows the team behind by 10 or more points to receive the kickoff after they score. That enabled the South to stay within striking distance. Burlington quarterback Gunnar Bienbaum scored from a yard out on a keeper to put the North up 13-0 and they built that to a 33-13 halftime lead. Parady’s first touchdown came from 3 yards out on a great second effort after it appeared he was stopped at the line of scrimmage. That made it 19-0 before the South broke through on a 22-yard TD run by Bellows Falls’ Shane Clark. Clark had himself quite a day with 112 yards and two touchdowns on 20 carries. The other top ball carriers for the South were Burr and Burton quarterback Jay McCoy with 105 yards on 20 carries and Springfield’s Matt LaChapelle with 83 yards on four totes. The North threatened to run away and hide after extending the lead to 27-7 but Windsor quarterback Seth Balch drew the South closer by scoring from a yard out. That score was set up by a 51-yard halfback option pass from BF’s Logan Cota to Will Fischer. A 44-yard scoring strike from Bienbaum to Alercio accounted for the 33-14 lead the North took to the locker room. The opening drive of the second half was an impressive one by the South. It featured Balch completing passes down the field to Fair Haven receivers Tim Files and Austin Ellis. The drive was capped by an 11-yard TD pass to Ellis and when Hedberg tacked on the point, the South was back in it at 33-21. Then, came the biggest play of the game. Parady broke loose for a 75-yard TD run. That was followed by an interception return for a score by BFA-St. Albans Ben Bruso. That put the North in command, 45-21 with 5:10 left in the third quarter. McCoy had his own big play, breaking free for a 46-yard touchdown and Hedberg’s point cut it to 45-34. Parady had another rushing touchdown, but McCoy ran one in from 6 yards out and it was 51-41 with 9:24 still remaining. But Bierbaum and Rankin hooked upon a 38-yard touchdown pass that put the game out of reach. Everyone wanted to congratulate the kid from Missiquoi who had introduced himself to the Vermont football fandom. “He is a popular guy,” North head coach Lonnie Wade said. It’s not that the Division III fraternity didn’t know who he was. A rival coach came up to him after the game and said, “I am going to tell you the same thing I told you after our game this year. You were the best player on the field.” Follow Tom on Twitter @RHSportsGuy
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