Starkville High School boys soccer head coach Evinn Watson had only been to the Mississippi Association of Coaches Randy West All-Star Soccer Game one time, back in 2013.

That year, he was a center midfielder/center back for Hattiesburg High School when he got the nod to play in the prestigious game. He said it was a special honor back then, but Tuesday brought a moment made of more magnitude when he stepped onto the field once again – this time as the head coach of the North All-Stars.

“It was awesome,” Watson said. 

Watson was not the only Yellow Jacket to make an all-star appearance on Tuesday. He coached a team that included Starkville’s Silas Walker, a soon-to-be-senior who scored 10 goals with seven assists during last season’s 15-6 campaign. The two helped the North squad best the South All-Stars 2-0 at Brandon High School.

“I had a great time playing in the game,” Walker said. “I love to be put into competitive scenes and the all-star game was a great opportunity for me to play against some very skilled players.”

Playing in the girls all-star game as a member of the North squad was New Hope striker Roni Kate West. The incoming senior’s 31 goals for the Trojans last year powered the team to a 14-7 season that ended in the North half championship.

“It was awesome,” West said. “It was great to get the opportunity to play with all of those good girls.”

 It was a tightly contested contest, but West and her North team fell to the South All-Stars 3-2. 

“It was really hard to play against a bunch of good players, but it was fun to do it with all of those good girls,” said West, who has been playing soccer since she was 6-years-old.

Just like the girls game, the boys all-stars were playing with intensity. Players weren’t just smiling, happy to be there. There were college coaches watching them along with parents and family. They were trying to win. 

“You got kids going in there slide tackling, going in hard on tackles. Of course you know they aren’t trying to hurt each other but they want to win,” Watson said. “Even toward the end (of the game) as we were up, you could see some of the South players getting frustrated because they weren’t winning or weren’t scoring or anything like that. So, it was very competitive.”

For Watson, all-star games were a part of his upbringing. That’s just a part of life when your  dad is basketball coach in Hattiesburg. But getting the opportunity to coach an all-star game was something new and rewarding to him .

“It’s a great experience,” he said. “It shows that your hard work is being seen, and some of my rival coaches are a part of the committee that chose me, so it shows that my hard work is paying off. These kids that I’ve put through the system of Starkville High School where they are working hard and seeing the benefits of our coaching; they trust in me. And that’s the best part about it. Not only do these kids trust in me, but the parents do too.”  

It’s up to the all-star coaches to pick their players, and when assembling his team of all-stars, Watson reached out to some other coaches around the area for input. It wasn’t hard to make his picks. He said high-level soccer players in the state are now being produced more often, and Walker is one of them. 

“The second best thing about (Walker) is his soccer skill,” he said. “He deserves to be out there on that field. When I put him on the field, he meshed with all the other players.”

The best thing about Walker? Who he is as a person.

“He doesn’t look down on anybody,” Watson said. “You’d think as an upperclassman, especially in high school, they’d pick on younger kids or not pick them in a game, but some of the people that he hangs out with, or goes and works out with, are ninth and eighth graders. He includes everyone.”

New Hope girls soccer head coach Andrew Olsen said he was thrilled for West when she got the call to play in the game.

“Man, I was happy for her, because a lot of times in those MAC all-star games, we kind of get overlooked in our area,” said Olsen, who is entering his seventh season as coach of New Hope girls soccer. “Since she’s been on the team, our goal has been to become the best player you can be and everything will fall into place. I think she’s finally being rewarded for all the effort she’s putting in.”