By Justin Sokeland
WBIW.com
BEDFORD – Summer has come and passed, and Bedford North Lawrence was battling sun-drunk energy fatigue during the final scrimmage session of the month. Like a long day at the beach, dizzy and weak from the lost body salt, drained by the heat, the Stars were struggling through some sunset moments. They could feel it in the air, summer was almost out of reach. Wake them up when the preseason ends.
Won’t be long til summer time is through. Official practice sessions for the 2026 season begin next week. School starts – ugh. So there was a lot of motivational depletion during Thursday’s wrap-up workouts with Edgewood and Vincennes Lincoln.
There were also reasons for satisfaction. For one, head coach Brayden Tidd was celebrating his 29th birthday, definitely a milestone worth a song, a skip and a hop. For another, BNL’s defense showed the most progress, refusing to allow a score during the full-squad sections of the scrimmages. And finally, there were enough individual highlights to remind everyone BNL’s offense could be explosive when it all comes together.
On this final night, the defense earned the spotlight. That’s the unit with the most questions to answer following so many significant graduation losses. They earned the most praise.
“The defense was night-and-day better,” Tidd said. “It helps when you have all your guys here. And we found out we’re pretty deep in some spots. The offense was a little more inconsistent than I like to see.“
Give the offense some love. During the seven-on-seven passing segment against the Mustangs, they were virtually unstoppable. Sophomore receiver Chris Armour made a spectacular catch, reaching back for a one-handed touchdown snag that was Sportscenter worthy. BNL’s strength will be its skill personnel, if given enough time to work their routes and granted big-enough holes for Brody Horton and Malakai Goodman to blast through.
Offense gets the glory. Defense wins championships. That side will decide BNL’s destiny.
“I think we will be a lot better,” said Goodman, who will work both ways as a linebacker and slot target. “Our defensive backs have really connected. We have a lot of replacements to do on the defensive end, we have a lot of new guys. But I think we’ll be ready to go in Week One against Martinsville.”
“It’s been a little bit of growing pains because of the key guys we lost, but we’re going to pick up right where we left off,” linebacker Grady Dalton added. “It’s not a rebuild, we reloaded. We’re going to be good. It’s just hard to get yourself up for these scrimmages. It’s obviously not a Friday night.”
What about the birthday? What present would Tidd like? His players thought a sectional championship would be nice.
“I just want to win – every game, every play, every series,” Tidd said. “I want to win.”
Summer is over. Now the serious work begins. The countdown toward the season opener with the Artesians clicked on when the final play of the dual scrimmages clicked off. First comes the sanctioned scrimmage with Brownstown (a 2A state finalist last season) on Aug. 14, followed by the debut against Martinsville (a defending sectional champion, at BNL’s expense) on Aug. 21.
”We have to work on everything,” Dalton said. “Nothing is perfect.”
“This was dragging,” Tidd said. “Now we have to jump right into school and practice after school. That will be fun. I’m excited for Monday and Tuesday. We’ll see how the first day of school (on Wednesday) goes.”
