Cherokee Bluff High School two-sport star Bristol Kersh is ITG Next’s 2025 Georgia Female Athlete of the Year.
Kersh just completed her sophomore season as a winger for the Cherokee Bluff girls soccer team and played a key role as a guard in the girls basketball team’s state championship win this season.
Kersh actually ended up missing the first eight games of the Bears’ soccer season due to the basketball team’s deep run in the state playoffs. Despite that, she still played a pivotal role in the soccer team’s success, helping the Bears to a 14-7 overall record and second straight Final Four appearance in the GHSA Class 3A state playoffs.
“Bristol is a freak-of-nature type athlete,” said Heath Padgett, who has served as the Cherokee Bluff girls soccer coach over the past two seasons. “Bristol is by far the best player I have ever coached in my 25 years of coaching both boys and girls soccer. She’s pretty impressive.”
Padgett said that although Kersh plays winger for his Bears team, she can really play any position on the pitch.
“She is a true number nine (the number designated for a striker or center forward position in soccer), but for us, she plays winger,” Padgett said, then went on to explain Kersh’s specialized role with the team. “We want her to have the most space as an offensive player, but we don’t really ask her to get back and play defense. We ask her to score goals for us, and she does a great job of that.”
Padgett said that despite missing the first eight games of the season, Kersh scored 45 goals with 15 assists over a 21-game stretch that included the playoffs. She led the team last year as a freshman with 50 goals scored along with 15 assists in just 18 games.
“She’s at about 95 goals over these past two years, so with two more seasons remaining, she has a chance to score 200-plus goals,” Padgett said.
That puts Kersh on pace to shatter the Hall County scoring record, which is 128 goals over a four-year high school season.
“She’s chasing that (record) down pretty quickly,” Padgett said.
Kersh is also a member of the U.S. Soccer Under-16 Women’s National Team and plays with local club team TopHat.
With two more high school seasons remaining for Kersh, Padgett said he’s glad to be able to coach her over the remainder of her high school career.
“People ask me how I coach a player like Bristol with her amazing skill level, and I tell them ‘I don’t,’” he said. “I just tell her to go out and take over.”
In addition to being named ITG Next’s 2025 Georgia Female Athlete of the Year, Kersh was also named the 2024-25 Gatorade Georgia Girls Soccer Player of the Year.
