The South has risen again thanks to Thunder and Lightning. Behind the one-two punch of Mountain View's Ash Gibson and West Salem's Jordan Bishop, the South broke a three game losing streak to take out the North on an evening perfect for football at PGE Park.

Make no mistake, Jordan Bishop is a PAC-10 wide receiver plain and simple. Making two acrobatic leaping touchdown catches with Jesuit's Raphiel Lambert draped on him, he walked out with the game MVP Award and deservedly so. I'm not sure Mike Riley knows how good he's going to have it and the Duck's who whined about not landing a receiver clearly missed the boat not going after Bishop who finished 2nd in both the High Jump and 400 meters at the State Track Meet and won a state title in the Long Jump just a few weeks back. Bishop is a big receiver with great hands and leaping ability.

Picking up with the South team at the last second was West Salem's Kicker/Punter Ryan Allen who was also showing he has D-1 'stuff' as he boomed his punts and kick and was clearly a huge advantage for the South team. He too will be playing for the Beavers next fall. If the Les Scwab Bowl had a Special Teams MVP, he'd have won it hands down. I didn't see West Salem over the season but the kids they put on the field were all impressive.

The "Thunder" on this night was Ash Gibson, who reminded me of OSU fullbacks of years gone by. He runs like an Enyeart, Pifer or Schilling and he'll be at Linfield next season. He must have been close to 100 yards and was clearly the best running back as he picked up the South's "Back of the Night' award. Looking over the program, the were a flock of kids heading over to McMinnville. Sherwood's Kole Krieger made quite a few tackles and he'll be a Wildcat next season as well. All told, there were eight kids lined up to attend Linfield, eight going on to Western Oregon and six heading to Oregon State, and six to University of Oregon. I'm not sure if this is right but the program lists 24 players as 'Undecided' which seems alarmingly high. One was Jefferson's Kalonji Paschal who is going to Eastern Arizona where he will pursue both basketball and football. Portland State has four players listed on the program.

All-Star football games can be a mixed bag and the North's evening could be summed up in one single play late in the fourth quarter. Trailing 24-6 with about three minutes left, Clackamas QB Ryan Cook found a streaking Spencer Arn's all alone down the left sideline and threw a perfect pass where Arn's suddenly left the turf, hit the dirt of home plate and went stumbling and the ball fell incomplete.

The North just couldn't get their 'mojo' working. The usual eletctrifying Andre Broadous struggled on this night as did David Puckett. Jordan Polk got injured early in the second half with what appeared to be a calf strain, and watched his teammates struggle. Before kickoff, I kept looking at the North's wideouts of the speedy Paschal and Lincoln's Polk, thinking they'd have a field day on the slower South defensive backs. I'd forgot about just how fast Klamath Union's Mark Brooks was. However, even the most reliable of the North QB's, Central Catholic's Nick Green, found his timing just off and the North's quick running backs found slow going through the South. The absence of a larger and more powerful running back hurt the North and I was surprised that maybe the best RB in the state, Lambert, played only DB. The South looked bigger, taller and stronger and they did a great job nuetralizing what speed advantage the North may have had. After watching the game, I'm not so sure the South wasn't quicker.

While the big 'hook-up' combo looked to be Bend's Beau Walker to Bishop, the other dynamite duo was South Medford's AJ Palazzolo to West Albany's Will Murphy who were doing most their damage in the first quarter before finally scoring on a 66 yd touchdown pass to cap the scoring for the night.

The North's lone score came on a one yard touchdown plunge by Zach Young after Green led the North toward the MAC Club end zone with a nice drive, highligthed by a 34 yard scamper by Young and a couple of clutch catches by Hood River Valley's Adam Coerper who showed good hands and an ability to catch in traffic.

Where's the Beef? The South had the beef on this night with Ashland's Matt Lipski who goes 6'9 and weights 330. Also add shot put champion Robert 'Paki' Atoe who looked bigger than 6'2 and 302. Way bigger. Then there was Willamette's Jeremiah Velee who is listed at 6'2 and 390.

South    10    0    7    7    -  24
North      6     0    0    0    -  6

South – Ryan Allen 24 yard field goal: 2:01
South – Beau Walker 5 pass to Jordan Bishop (Allen kick): 1:21
North – Zach Young 1 run (kick failed): 4:35
South – Walker 8 pass to Bishop (Allen kick): 4:59
South – AJ Palzzolo 66 pass to Will Murphy (Allen kick): 2:27

RUSHING
South – Ash Gibson 12-68, John Gallagher 3-6, Zach Todd 11-6, AJ Palazollo 4-4, Beau Walker 4- (-3).
North – Zach Young 13-61, Andre Broadous 7-23, David Puckett 5-19, Nick Green 6-11, Ryan Cook 4-2, Justin Monahan 1-0.
PASSING
South – AJ Palazollo 5-18-1-112, Beau Walker 9-17-0-74.
North – Ryan Cook 9-16-1-84, Nick Green 6-11-1-35, Andre Broadous 3-8-0-19.
RECEIVING
South – Jordan Bishop 5-51, Will Murphy 3-94, Zach Todd 2-6, Daryl Watkins 1-13, John Gallagher 1-8, Michael Calef 1-8, Jordan Jenkins 1-6.
North – Jordan Polk 5-42, Justin Monahan 5-29, Adam Coerper 3-19, Spencer Arns 2-26, Kalonji Paschal 2-17, Zach Young 1-5.