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By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor

MONTGOMERY – Three of Shelby County’s brightest stars will represent the state of Alabama in its annual showdown with Mississippi’s best, and they’ll be coached by a pair of county natives.

Spain Park’s Brock Bradley and Hudson Reed will join Thompson’s Ami Moala on the Alabama All-Stars roster for the 2025 Alabama-Mississippi All-Star Classic. Players, coaches and principals were first notified last week before the full roster was released to the media on Friday, Oct. 10.

The Alabama High School Athletic Directors and Coaches Association chose the 42-man roster from nominations by high school coaches across the state.

The AHSADCA also selected and announced the coaching staff, which includes Columbiana native Kirk Johnson and Chelsea native Jake Ganus.

Bradley earned his selection to the Alabama All-Stars team after a stellar career as the Jags starting quarterback. After starting for the first time as a sophomore, he entered the 2025 season with 4,754 career passing yards and 55 touchdowns against just six interceptions.

Those numbers were good enough to earn him All-County honors in both the 2023 and 2024 seasons, including a First Team selection in 2024 to go with his Class 6A All-State Honorable Mention.

Entering Week 8, Bradley had a 68 percent completion rate with 1,581 yards and 14 touchdowns in six starts.

The three-star quarterback has been committed to Clemson to play football since the start of his junior season. He has 13 other FBS offers, including Power 4 offers from Cincinnati, Texas A&M, Wake Forest and West Virginia.

Bradley will be joined by one of the men who has protected him well over the last few seasons in Reed.

A senior offensive lineman listed at 6-foot-6, 290 pounds by the AHSAA, Reed made the All-County Team last season as a junior thanks to a highly-graded campaign where he rose the ranks of the top linemen in the state.

Like Bradley, Reed holds a three-star rating from 247Sports and has 15 FBS offers to this point. That includes Power Four offers from Arkansas, Cincinnati, Kentucky, Mississippi State, Oregon and West Virginia. He is uncommitted as of Oct. 10.

Moala rounds out the three local players to represent the Thompson Warriors. This is now the ninth-straight season that a Thompson player has been selected for the Alabama-Mississippi All-Star Classic dating back to KJ Robertson and Jalen Raynam in 2017.

Moala moved to Alabaster from Oregon over the offseason and immediately became one of the state’s top recruits and a key piece of the Warriors defensive line.

In his first seven games with Thompson, he racked up 41 total tackles, including 22 solo tackles and nine tackles for loss to go for 5.9 tackles per game. He also boasts a sack and a fumble recovery.

Moala is ranked as an 88 overall and three-star by 247Sports. He is currently committed to North Carolina after flipping from Oregon upon his move to Alabama.

He has 18 offers to his name, including Power Four offers from Arizona, Arizona State, BYU, Houston, Iowa State, Miami, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Tennessee, Texas Tech, UCLA, USC and Utah.

In addition, a former Shelby County star in Clay-Chalkville receiver Corey Barber was named to the Alabama All-Stars team.

The All-Star Classic will see the Ole Miss commit reunite with former teammates Bradley and Reed after he went for 1,429 yards and 18 touchdowns in 2024. That was good enough for him to be named a finalist for Class 6A Back of the Year as well as First Team selections for the All-County and Class 6A All-State teams.

The Alabama All-Stars will be led by two men who claim Shelby County cities as their hometowns in Johnson and Ganus.

Johnson grew up in Columbiana and played football at Cornerstone Christian School where he earned runner-up honors in the AISA. Since becoming a head coach in 2022, he hasn’t missed a state championship game and won back-to-back titles with Montgomery Catholic, first in Class 4A in 2023 and then in Class 5A in 2024.

Johnson now coaches at Benjamin Russell, where he has the Wildcats in first place in Class 6A, Region 3 as of Oct. 9 with a record of 6-1. His team is currently ranked No. 6 in the Alabama Sportswriters Association’s football media rankings.

He’ll now team with the man who he coached against in the 2024 5A state championship game in Ganus.

Ganus graduated from Chelsea after becoming an All-State quarterback and Shelby County Player of the Year with the Hornets. He went on to play at UAB for three seasons before transferring to Georgia following the closure of the Blazers’ football program.

After initially starting his career as a Thompson assistant, Ganus took over as Moody’s head football coach and quickly led the Blue Devils to success. He has won at least 10 games in each of his three seasons, a feat that had never been accomplished once prior to his arrival, and led the program to its first state championship game appearance in 2024.

Moody entered Week 8 at 5-2 on the season with its only losses coming to Georgia powerhouse Gainesville and Class 7A contender Auburn High School.

The Alabama-Mississippi All-Star Classic will take place on Saturday, Dec. 13 at the University of Southern Mississippi’s Roberts Stadium and will be televised on WOTM. Alabama has won the last four matchups, including last year’s 27-11 meeting at Hancock Whitney Stadium in Mobile.